Perhaps this is no surprise. Young men, college and school going students dominate the social media in the urban India, with highest levels of penetration into social media sites.
About 84 per cent of all young men (2.4 crore) and 82 per cent of college going (1.5 crore) and 68 per cent of school going (1.5 crore) kids accessed the social media.
A survey, conducted by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB, said the young men contribute about 35 per cent to the overall urban social networking base. While 34 per cent are from the top 8 metros, an equal pie is contributed by small towns with a population of up to 5 lakh.
Active mobile Internet user base in the country too is growing, with a base of 4 crore.
The survey said the number of social media users in urban India had cross the 6.2-crore mark by December 2012. “It is estimated to reach 6.6 crore by June 2013,” the report on Social Media in India has said.
Facebook leads
Facebook virtually dwarfs all other social networking sites in India, with 97 per cent of 5 crore of active Internet users accessing the site. And young men and college kids dominate the site. This is followed by Google Plus with 34 per cent, LinkedIn with 17 per cent and Twitter with 14 per cent, the survey said, quoting figures of the first half of last year.
The IMRB’s Web Audience Measurement System (WAM), LinkedIn has the second highest average time spent after Facebook. On an average time spent by Netizens in India was put at 29.6 minutes on weekdays as against 28.8 minutes on weekends.
“Of the eight crore active Internet users in urban India, 72 per cent have accessed social networking. Email, however, continues to dominate the usage pattern with 80 per cent of the Netizens used it for emails, flowed by 60 per cent for entertainment and 59 per cent for browsing,” the survey said.