PHL Facebook ranking slips as usage nears saturation

Filipinos are apparently approaching the upper limit of their capacity to join Facebook, causing the country to slip in global rankings of the social network's users. The Philippines went down two notches to seventh place in the list of countries with the most number of Facebook users, according to analytics firm Socialbakers.com. In its latest statistics for the first week of June, the company revealed that India and Mexico have jumped past the Philippines in terms of the total number of Facebook users in the last six months. In October 2010, the Philippines ranked sixth in the Socialbakers list, trailing only the US, Indonesia, the UK, Turkey and France, which went down to eighth place according to latest data. The report also noted that there are now 24,793,040 Facebook users in the Philippines, representing a 24.82 percent penetration rate in terms of the total population. Saturation point In terms of online population, however, the penetration rate is pegged at a near-saturation rate of 83.48 percent, which could explain the slight slowdown in growth. The report indicated that the Philippines recorded only 1.5 million new users in the past month, compared with Mexico's 2.3 million new users, and India's 2.6 million. Despite this slowdown in growth, another online report, this time by comScore, revealed that in terms of the number of hours spent in social networks, developed countries such as Canada, the UK, and the US can't hold a candle to the Philippines. Hours spent online According to its latest report published on June 7, most Filipinos spend an average of 7.9 hours on social networking sites for the month, which is about the same length of a work day in the Philippines. The country which spent the most time on social networks is Israel with 10.7 hours, followed by Russia (10.3 hours) and Argentina (8.4 hours). In October last year, the Philippines ranked only fifth on the list, logging an average of 6.2 hours on social networks. These recent studies mirror recent reports saying that the Philippines is now the social media capital of the world, where 9 in 10 online users are either surfing through their Facebook feeds or scanning their Twitter timelines. — With TJ Dimacali, GMA News