comScore: Asia Pacific has become the world's largest social networking market

According to the latest report released by market research firm comScore on September 23, 2011, the Asia-Pacific region has become the world's largest social networking site market, but Asia-Pacific users spend the least time on social networking sites.

The report, titled "The Rise of Social Networking in Latin America," examined the use of social networking sites in Latin America and other parts of the world. The report showed that among the five regions of the world, namely Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Middle East-Africa, Asia Pacific has the largest number of social networking site users.

ComScore wrote in the report that in terms of visits to social networking sites, users in the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 32.5%; users in Europe ranked second, accounting for 30.1%; users in North America ranked third, accounting for 18.1%; users in Latin America accounted for 10.2%; and users in the Middle East and Africa accounted for 9.1%.

The report said that although the Asia-Pacific region has the largest number of social networking site users, it is one of the least interactive regions, spending only 16.5% of its online time on social networking sites. European users are the most interactive social networking site users, spending 38.1% of their online time on social networking sites. North American users follow closely, spending 21.4% of their online time on social networking sites.

Although Latin American and Middle Eastern-African social networking site users account for only 10.2% and 9.1% of the global total, they spend 12.8% and 11.2% of their online time on social networking sites, respectively. The comScore report also shows that Facebook is still the world's largest social networking site in terms of independent visits, followed by Twitter and Windows Live.