Google+ in Asia: Most Users Are From Singapore, India

Singapore recorded the highest share of visits to Google+ in key Asia Pacific markets, according to Experian Hitwise data.

The report measured over an eight-week period from July to August 2011 comparing the share of visits by country under the social networking and forums category.

Share of visits to Google Plus in Experian Hitwise's social networking/forum category.

Here’s a quick summary of the findings:

Singapore

• Google+ in Singapore enjoyed a continued rate of adoption from 0.8 percent share of visit on the week of July 16 to a peak of 1.2 percent ending August 27.
• Hitwise said Singapore is the only country that sustained continued growth in visits after the Google+ beta launch. Its popularity could be attributed to the dominance of Google in the country as close to 34 percent of upstream traffic originated from the search engine.

Hong Kong

• Hong Kong ranked the lowest in adopting Google+ compared with other countries at 90th position with a 0.074 percent share in the social networking and forums category during launch week. Share of visits for the city continued to be relatively flat ending August 27.

• The lower rate of adoption in Hong Kong could be due to the more established presence and use of local Chinese sites in the social networking category. Almost 60 percent of visits go to Facebook and YouTube while 40 percent of visits went to local Chinese forums such as Discuss, Uwants, and Sina Weibo.

India

• India is the second market in Asia after Singapore where users in the country warm up to Google+. India achieved 14th place at its peak with 0.4 percent share of visits on July 16 and started dipping at the end of the month to 0.2 percent as of August 27.

• The positive reception of Google+ in India could be attributed to the rapid growth of the country’s mobile and Internet community, its growing economy and the increasing popularity of social media, Hitwise reported.

Among the Asia Pacific cities and countries measured in this report – Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India – Facebook continues to enjoy a strong presence in the social networking scene despite the launch of Google’s new social network as data results revealed minimal impact on Facebook visits so far.

In all Asia markets except Hong Kong, visitors to Google+ are driven by its own properties such as Google search, YouTube, and Gmail.