We Are Social and Meltwater have released Digital 2024: April Statshot, the quarterly update in their Global Digital Report series on social media and digital trends worldwide.

The latest data shows that there are currently 5.07 billion social media user identities, which is an additional 37 million user identities created over the last quarter. However, globally the average time spent on social media dropped by four minutes to 2 hours and 20 minutes on average each day.

Key findings for the region include:

    • Southeast Asians are more active on social media than their global counterparts: Social media users in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are all above the global average. Users in the Philippines spend 3 hours and 30 minutes each day on social media – an extra 1 hour and 10 minutes about the global average.

    • Southeast Asians are the world’s most “active” gamers: The Philippines (96.5%), Indonesia (95.3%), and Vietnam (94.7%) took all three of the top spots in the latest rankings for percentage of internet users playing video games.

    • Video content is popular in the region: 97.4% of internet users in the Philippines watch TV via streaming services – above the global average of 92.7% and the second highest globally. Similarly, the nation tops watching music videos online (72.9%) and vlogs (49.9%).

    • Asians spend the most time globally on YouTube, with South Koreans and Thais leading at 45:49 hours and 42:49 hours each month respectively, versus the global average of 27:43 hours.

    • The global average time spent on TikTok is 31 hours and 47 minutes. In Southeast Asia though, this is higher: Indonesia (38h 24m), Malaysia (38h 7m), Thailand (37h 18m), Philippines (36h 49m), Vietnam (36h 16m), Singapore (32h 59m).

  • Indonesians love podcasts: Nearly twice as many Indonesians (40.2%) listen to podcasts each week compared with their global counterparts. 40.2% listen to podcasts each week (21%).
  • Gen Z are the biggest users of search engines and email: More than 83% of this cohort have used a search engine in the past month, which is higher than any other age group. Young women, who are the biggest users of TikTok, are actually the most prolific users of search engines. Despite assumptions about the generation, data shows that Gen Z is also the biggest users of email with around three-quarters using email each month.