by John Huetteman

Created on: March 09, 2010

Top Non-American Social Networking Sites

According to all available sources, people worldwide spend more time than ever before on social networking sites.  The Nielson Company reports that the amount of time global users spend on one social media site, Facebook (who is named the No. 1 global social networking destination visited by 67% of social media users during the month of December, 2009), has also risen to nearly six hours per month.  With 206.9 million unique global visitors to social media sites, the United States contributing 142.1 million unique visitors of the global total (Media and Marketing, 2010), The Nielsen Company obtains their statistics using their definition of the globe: United States, Japan, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Australia and Switzerland.

Yet as the world’s internet population increasingly resembles the world’s actual global population (World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats, 2009), two of the world’s largest populations are not represented in the Neilsen Company report: China and India, who collectively contribute 1.34 and 1.16 billion people according to the United States Central Intelligence Agencies’ World Factbook July 2009 estimates.

Although American Social Networking sites Facebook and Twitter continue to be leaders in social networking throughout the world, some top non-American social networking sites in India (India’s Social Networking Market Sees Global Brands Gain Prominence in 2008, 2009) are:

Bharatstudent.com hi5.com

Additionally, the top 3 social networking sites in China (MacManus, 2010) are:

Renren.com Kaixin001.com 51.com

There are conflicting reports, however, as TechCrunch, a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies, reports the top Chinese social networking site as Qzone at qzone.qq.com operated by TenCent, Inc., who have reported group revenues of over $1 billion dollars in 2008.  TechCrunch reports the top 3 Chinese social networking sites as:

Qzone.qq.com 51.com Tieba.baidu.com

Works Cited

India’s Social Networking Market Sees Global Brands Gain Prominence in 2008. (2009, February 17). Retrieved March 9, 2010, from comScore: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/ 2009/2/India_Social_Networking/(language)/eng-US 

World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats. (2009, September 30). Retrieved March 2, 2010, from Internet

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