Malaysia: Social Media and Facebook numbers

There’s a great article in The Star (Malaysia) by David Gibson of Inter-Asia.

Malaysian Internet users like Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster. They’re also connecting via Twitter, LindedIn and Plaxo, and eBlogger.

They use resources such as Slideshare, iTunes, Flickr, and YouTube. 

Nine of the Top 20 websites in Malaysia are social networking sites, and the top 6 sites are Yahoo!, Facebook, Google.com.my, YouTube, Google.com, and Blogger.

Social media big in Malaysia

By 2010 there will be 17 million Internet users in Malaysia. 45% of Malaysians are between the ages of 15 and 40, 31% under the age of 15.

By 2016, 2.6 million younger Malaysians will be newly-active consumers.

They increasingly get their news online, they belong to a variety of social networks, they actively consume and adapt information, and they have a sense of global culture.

Some 100,000 Malaysians are joining Facebook every month, on top of the 1.4 million Malaysians who have already joined city, workplace, business, professional, and social groups on Facebook, to share information about themselves and the things they’re thinking and doing, to gather support for causes, to publicise affiliations and proliferate news and views – from photos, videos, information, games, contests, music, to promotions, events, issues, and awareness-raising.

Social media is huge, it’s trusted by users, it moulds perception, and it’s not going away. In Malaysia, 80% of affluent Malaysians (those with a household income above RM5,000) use social networking sites.

78% of people trust the recommendations of other consumers, while only 14% trust advertising.

Messaging via social sites is now more popular than email, and 32% trust bloggers’ opinions on products and services.

Interesting to see the growth is similar in Malaysia as to other countries.

Note the inclusion of Friendster – very popular in Asia, whereas it’s the bullied “other” network in the west.