On average, global web users across 10 countries spent roughly five and a half hours on social networks in February 2010, up more than two hours from the same time last year. While the U.S. boasts the largest unique social networking audience, Italian and Australian web surfers led the way for average time on site with more than six hours each in February.
| Social Network Usage By Country / Feb 2010 Home & Work | |
|---|---|
| Country | Time per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
| Average | 5:27:33 |
| Italy | 6:27:53 |
| Australia | 6:25:21 |
| United States | 6:02:34 |
| United Kingdom | 5:50:56 |
| Spain | 4:50:49 |
| Brazil | 4:27:54 |
| France | 4:12:01 |
| Germany | 3:47:24 |
| Switzerland* | 3:26:00 |
| Japan | 2:37:07 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company
*home only | |
Overall, the active unique audience to social networks grew nearly 30%, from 244.2M to 314.5M in the last year. In the U.S., the average active unique audience grew to 149.M from 115M in February 2009.
Across the 10 countries measured, Facebook drew the largest active unique audience globally and claimed nearly three times the sessions per user of MySpace, the next closest network. Facebook users also spent more time per session, logging nearly six hours per user across the globe.
| Global* Social Network Traffic / Feb 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Web Site | % Reach of Active Social Users | Sessions per Person | Time per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
| 52% | 19.16 | 5:52:00 | |
| Myspace.com | 15% | 6.66 | 0:59:33 |
| Twitter.com | 10% | 5.81 | 0:36:43 |
| 6% | 3.15 | 0:12:47 | |
| Classmates Online | 5% | 3.29 | 0:13:55 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company *United States, Brazil, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Unique audience represents active usage, not overall membership of social networks | |||