2/3 of college students would rather have an internet connection than a car

Click to enlarge

Source:  Taken from Cisco's World Technology Report, September 2011
Press release here
Methodology - 1,400 college students aged 18-23 & 1400 young professionals under 30.
The survey was translated into local languages and fielded in 14 countries to gain approximately
100 completes for each subgroup in each country
Countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy,
Russia, India, China, Japan, Australia

6% of shopping searches in Brazil come from mobile devices

"Across Latin America, smartphones and mobile broadband subscribers are growing at a high rate and have in turn driven the mobile strategies of wireless operators. Today, Brazil is No. 5 in the world in number of Internet users and is second to China in growth of 3G subscribers year-over-year.
“The mobile Web is exploding in Brazil, helped with the increase of prepaid data, which is cheaper than going to cyber cafes and also more private,” noted Google’s head of mobile advertising for Latam, Peter Fernandez, during the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in São Paulo.
People are changing their lifestyle and how they consume information. Companies, as well as advertising agencies, carriers and applications developers have to understand that and move forward to provide these new customers what they demand.
“Now, 6% of shopping searches in Brazil are coming from mobile. It’s a 700% growth compared to the past year, and eight times faster than desktops,” noted Fernandez."

Source:  RCRWireless, 20th October 2011

18% of internet users access solely through a mobile connection

"Mobile is increasingly the primary platform for internet access, according to today’s Global Consumer Survey (GCS) report from MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce.
Based on research conducted among over 8,000 respondents in nine countries across five continents, the MEF GCS found that 72% access the mobile internet on a daily basis with 18% no longer using fixed line internet access whatsoever. In each individual market, the number of consumers accessing the mobile internet daily is higher than the number accessing fixed-line internet."

Source:  Research by the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)'s Global Consumer Survey, reported in a press release, 12th October 2011

See an extract here

The markets surveyed were:  Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, UK & US

5 of the top 10 markets where most time is spent on social networking sites are in Latin America

"Latin Americans are strongly engaged with social networking. Half of the top 10 worldwide markets ranked by time spent on social networking sites are in Latin America, with Argentina leading the region at 10 hours per month in June 2011.
The Latin American social networking audience is nearly equal in its composition of males and females, but females account for a larger share of social networking time spent (53.6 percent) compared to males (46.4 percent). This trend was most significant in Brazil where females accounted for 58.7 percent of all social networking time spent.
People age 15-24 demonstrated the strongest engagement on social networks, accounting for nearly half (48.0 percent) of all time spent in the category. This trend was most significant in Venezuela where visitors age 15-24 accounted for 3 of every 5 social networking minutes (58.2 percent).
Facebook.com strongly led the social networking market in Latin America, reaching more than 91 million visitors. Windows Live Profile ranked #2 with more than 35.5 million visitors in the region. Orkut held the #3 spot with 34.4 million visitors, largely driven by the site’s popularity in Brazil, while Twitter.com ranked #4 with 24.3 million visitors.
Five of the top 10 markets ranked by Facebook.com reach are in Latin America. Facebook reached 90.9 percent of all online users in Chile, ranking as the most penetrated market in Latin America.
In Brazil, Orkut ranked as the most-visited social networking destination, reaching 35.7 million visitors, an increase of 20 percent from June 2010. Facebook.com, which is the second largest social networking site in Brazil, witnessed strong growth increasing 192 percent to 24.5 million visitors.
Venezuela is the only country in Latin America in which Twitter.com rises to second place in the social networking ranking. One in four online users in Venezuela visited Twitter.com in June (26.5 percent reach).
Recently launched Google+ reached 28 million visitors worldwide in the first 33 days of its public existence (June 29, 2011 to July 31, 2011). Brazil ranked as the sixth largest market for the site globally, contributing 793,923 visitors."
Source:  Press release from comScore, 20th September 2011

Social network Badoo has 120m members

"It's a 120-million-member social network that's adding over 300,000 users a day, with more than 4.3 million daily photo and video uploads, and seven billion monthly page views. It has Facebook's fastest-growing app, with 570,000 new daily users, making it the third-biggest app of all after FarmVille and CityVille. Hugely profitable, it's forecast to generate hundreds of millions of dollars this year, and is being aggressively courted by venture-capital firms valuing it in the billions. And it's run from London by a secretive Russian serial entrepreneur who has steadfastly refused to be interviewed or photographed. Until now.
[...]
Still barely registering in Britain or the US, the free-to-use network -- on the web and via smartphones -- is a mass phenomenon in Brazil (14.1 million members), Mexico (nine million), France (8.2 million), Spain (6.5 million) and Italy (six million). Relying on word-of-mouth rather than any marketing spend, it has cracked the internet's eternal conundrum: how to persuade users to pay hard cash in a world drowning in free digital services and content, by charging members each time they want to boost their visibility to others searching for a date."

Source:  Wired, 6th April 2011

Orkut has 52m members

"Over 52 million active users worldwide
Over 34 billion pageviews each month
Average user visits the site 26 times each month, spending over 8 minutes per visit
Source: comScore Media Metrics, 2010, as reported by Orkut
Also:  site demographics - 51% of the membership is from Brazil, 20% from India, 18% from the US.
Also:
"Photos and scraps continue to be strong features, and over the last month, we’ve hit a few records. On Christmas Eve, users shared 93 milion scraps, an all-time high, and on January 3rd after New Years, users viewed 1.6 billion photos, which is almost 19,000 photo views a second. For context, YouTube crossed the 1 billion video view mark in October 2009, and crossed the 2 billion mark in May of last year."

Source:  Orkut blog, 26th January 2011 (on the occasion of their 7th birthday)

The online & offline habits of teen and tween girls

"Media Habits & Relationships
'Being with friends' (in the real world) is what girls across all age groups (66%) enjoy doing, followed by 'shopping' and 'listening to music'. And when it comes to shortened attention spans, the research shows that a third (30%) of Gen Z girls regularly watch TV shows online for longer than 10 minutes.
Play & Games
Gaming has become a commonplace activity among a relatively new 'casual gamers' user group, but has the market now reached saturation? Not where girls are concerned. Half (49%) of older teens say they never spend time with portable gaming devices or console games. Gaming is more entrenched in younger girls lives, with 35% of 12 and under personally owning a portable gaming device. Social gaming habits, such as playing Farmville, CItyVille, Cafe World and Sims regularly, are prevalent, although vary depending on country: Brazil and Poland top the list (41% and 40%) for girls playing MMOGs (massive multiplayer online games) with Germany and France the lowest (21% and 22%). In the UK, 34% of girls play regularly and in the US the figure is 29%.
Spending Power
Girls like to shop - scoring it as their second favorite activity - but does their lack of plastic hamper their spending money online? It appears not. One in five girls aged 12 and under regularly visit online shopping sites, rising to one in four once they become teenagers. The majority of teenage girls are still buying products on the high street or at a shopping center rather than online, but this shopping medium is far from off limits - 13% of Generation Z girls regularly purchase products online regardless of age.
    Highlights:

    Under 12s
        - 64% use a gaming console
        - Only 35% put listening to music in their top 5 activities
        - More than 60% own a mobile phone
        - More than 60% never read a newspaper
        - Prefer instant messenger to social networks

    13-15 year olds
        - More than 45% say listening to music is one of their favorite
          activities
        - Almost 80% own a mobile
        - YouTube, followed by Facebook, are their favorite social networks
        - 25% regularly visit online shopping sites although only 13%
          Purchase products
        - Begin using mobile web and mobile social networks

    16-18 year olds
        - Most interested in music - nearly 50% list it in their top 5
          activities
        - Nearly 80% own a mobile
        - Are most likely to read newspapers
        - Are least likely to use a gaming console
        - The heaviest media users
        - More likely to use social networks rather than instant messages"
Source:  Press release from Stardoll and Carat, 27th January 2011
About the research
The research was conducted within the virtual world of Stardoll (http://www.stardoll.com), and the total number of respondents was 11,000. The study was conducted in August 2010 using Questback's advance survey tool EasyResearch. Respondents were recruited randomly on Stardoll.com by sending the survey to Stardoll members within the 11 markets (Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, UK and US).

The Asia Pacific region account for 70% of the world's virtual goods sales, down from 81% in 2007

"In 2007, the Asia/Pacific region accounted for more than 81% of the total worldwide virtual goods revenue. In 2010, North and South America regions accounted for nearly 20% of the revenue, with Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) accounting for 10%. The remaining 70% of worldwide virtual goods revenue remains in the Asia/Pacific region, says In-Stat (www.in-stat.com)."

Source:  Press release from InStat, 25th January 2011