Social media usage in Australia may not be growing as fast as it once was, but that doesn’t mean more people aren’t spending more time with social networks. eMarketer estimates that 11.6 million people in the country will visit social networking sites at least monthly this year. That’s up just 2.7% over 2014 numbers, and increases will continue in the low single digits throughout our forecast period.
That doesn’t mean usage has completely plateaued, though. While the total audience size is barely inching upward, the amount of time that audience spends on social sites is still climbing, according to longitudinal research from Sensis.
In 2015, just under half of internet users in Australia reported using social networks at least daily. That was a 3-percentage-point increase over 2014 and a 19-percentage-point increase since 2011.
Over the period of the research, less-frequent choices have fallen in popularity as more-frequent choices have risen.
Sensis found that Facebook was by far the most-used social media site in Australia, with 93% of social media users using it. It was followed by LinkedIn, at 28%. Among respondents under 30, however, Instagram and Snapchat were more popular than LinkedIn.
The March 2015 poll also found that social media is popular on mobile devices in Australia. Among all social media users surveyed, 70% used the services on their smartphones, compared with just 52% who used a laptop and 28% who used a desktop for social media.
eMarketer estimates that 87.5% of all social network users in Australia will use the services on their mobile phones at least monthly this year. Facebook dominates on the mobile channel as well.
