The Philippines has been ranked as the “most social nation” in Opera’s latest State of the Mobile Web report. Specifically, more mobile internet users in the Philippines visit social networking sites than in any other country around the world.
The report was put together using aggregated information obtained from Opera Mini servers, which incorporates technology to significantly compress – and speed up – the loading of web pages on devices running Opera Mini.
Opera Software says its servers processed 24,575 TB of data and served over 160 billion pages in June 2015 alone.
As it is, the Philippines has the second largest Opera Mini user base in Southeast Asia, with 86% of the page views from Opera Mini mobile browser going to social networking sites. Facebook is the dominant destination, though other sites that are often visited are Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Flirchi.
“The prevalence of the smartphone is driving internet usage in the Philippines,” Opera Software country manager for the Philippines Eiko H. Raquel said in a statement.
“This country used to be the text-messaging capital of the world. Now, with easier internet access and higher smartphone adoption, the Philippines has not only been crowned the ‘selfie capital of the world’ by Time magazine, but also has now been ranked as the most social nation” by Opera,” she wrote.
To be clear, Opera’s report only tells half the picture, since it is arguable that a majority of users accessing their favorite social networking sites would do so through the official apps.
Yet there is no doubt that the proliferation of smartphone is significantly breaking down the barriers to online interactions and social network usage. The trend looks set to continue too, if you consider Opera’s assertion on how smartphone adoption rate has grown from 41% in June 2014 to 55% in June 2015 in the country.