MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos are still the most ardent consumers of video content this year but Indonesians dethroned them as the heaviest consumers of video games, according to Digital 2024, the annual report on worldwide social media and digital trends by Meltwater and We Are Social.

According to the report, half of all Filipino users aged 16 to 24 watch vlogs or influencer videos per week at 50.7%, the highest in the world and more than twice the global average. Next to Filipinos are users from Morocco where only 32% watch vlogs per week.

Almost half of all Filipino social media users also follow “influencers or other experts” in social media at 43.9%, the highest in the world, while the worldwide average is only 22.6%, the report said.

Filipino users aged 16 to 24 also kept their rank as fourth in terms of time spent on social media daily at 3 hours and 34 minutes, which is more than an hour longer than the world average at 2 hours and 23 minutes.

Deep love of videos, music

The report by Meltwater and We Are Social also looked at trends in online video consumption. They found that, among internet users in the Philippines aged 16 to 64, 97.2% watch any kind of online video each week, the highest in the world.

Comparatively, the worldwide average is at 92% and Mexico, the next closest country in terms of percentage, has 97% of users aged 16 to 64 watching online videos each week.

According to the report, Filipino internet users love to watch educational videos like how-to videos and tutorial videos, second only to South Africans worldwide. 58.3% of Filipino internet users watch educational videos each week compared to 60.8% of South African users.

Filipinos also reign supreme in watching online music videos. Almost three out of four Filipino internet users aged 16 to 24 watch online music videos each week at 72.7%, far ahead of the worldwide average at only 49.7%. Only 64.7% of internet users in Chile, the next country in terms of percentage, watch online music videos each week.

Two out of five Filipino users listen to music in online streaming services each year at 42.9%, ranking 15th worldwide. The Philippines is 10 percentage points behind South Africa which took the top spot with slightly more than half of the African country’s internet users streaming music at 52.2%.

Despite Filipinos’ interest in online music streaming services, only 22% of Filipino online music streaming users pay for the services, slightly lower than the world average at 22.5%. In comparison to the Philippines, 43.2% of online music streamers in Sweden pay for streaming music.

Dethroned in gaming

Indonesia dethrones the Philippines’ for being the country with the highest percentage of internet users who play video games. According to Digital 2024, 96.5% of Indonesian internet users aged 16-64 play video games on any device compared to 95.9% of Filipinos who play games.

Social media butterflies

The report also noted that internet users in the Philippines spend an average of 3 hours and 34 minutes using social media each day, ranking 4th in the world followed by users in Brazil (3 hours and 37 minutes), South Africa (3 hours and 41 minutes), and Kenya (3 hours and 43 minutes).

Philippine internet users also ranked fourth worldwide in terms of time in the internet used on social media at 40% next to Indonesia (41.7%), Mexico (42.5%), and Saudi Arabia (43.4%). 

Filipino internet users spend an average of 26 hours 54 minutes each month on Facebook, the 4th highest in the world next to users in Vietnam (26 hours and 54 minutes), the United Arab Emirates (29 hours and 48 minutes), and Egypt (33 hours and 59 minutes).

On TikTok, Filipinos are top 8 in terms of average time spent on the platform, at 40 hours and 46 minutes monthly, almost twice the monthly global average of 24 hours.

Unlike other social media platforms, Filipinos spend least time on Instagram and is only second to Vietnam in spending the least time on the platform at 3 hours and 41 mins compared to the worldwide average of 15 hours and 50 minutes each month.

The complete 561-slide Digital 2024 report, with insights on a host of various countries, is downloadable here. – Rappler.com