MUMBAI: Majority (58 per cent) of Indians say social media is important to them; compared to 42 per cent globally, according to a new poll of online respondents conducted by Ipsos OTX - the global innovation center for Ipsos, the world’s third largest market and opinion research firm.
“As Mahatma Gandhi rightly said - ‘action expresses priorities’, social media is well on its way to being a priority as majority of Indians who have access to the internet claim social media is important in their lives,” said Ipsos India head of marketing communication Biswarup Banerjee.
“With proliferation of mobile internet in India, social media has become a part of everyone’s life, it influences people’s daily life and how they interact with each other. Social media has now become a mainstream way of communicating - for individuals as well as businesses,” added Banerjee.
The big social media story is told in the demographics, especially age. Age appears to be the strongest demographic driver of placing importance on social media in India. Indeed, a big majority (62 per cent) of those under the age of 35 rate social media as important vs. 58 per cent for those aged 35-49 and 44 per cent for those aged 50-64. Women (64 per cent) seem more likely than men (54 per cent) to rate it highly.
The countries with the highest proportions those indicating social media is important to them are from: Turkey (64 per cent), Brazil (63 per cent), Indonesia (62 per cent), China (61 per cent), Saudi Arabia (59 per cent), India (58 per cent), Mexico (54 per cent) and South Africa (52 per cent). This group of social media lovers is followed by Argentina (45 per cent), Russia (44 per cent), Spain (42 per cent), Poland (37 per cent), Hungary (36 per cent), Sweden (35 per cent), Germany (33 per cent), Great Britain (33 per cent) and the United States (32 per cent). The lower group includes: Australia (30 per cent), Italy (30 per cent), Belgium (29 per cent), Canada (28 per cent), South Korea (28 per cent), Japan (24 per cent) and France (17 per cent).
Ipsos conducted this study among 18,002 people in 24 countries in the month of July.
