FILE PHOTO
The Philippines has once again been recognized as one of the world’s social media capitals, ranking 10th in the list of countries with the most number of users on website twitter.com.
Data from social media monitor Semiocast showed that 9.5 million out of Twitter’s 517 million users were from the Philippines, placing the country in the 10th spot in the worldwide rankings, trailing Spain but ahead of Turkey.
The feat was achieved despite the fact that only 30 percent of Filipinos have access to the Internet.
The Filipino Internet user’s affinity with social media was nowhere more evident than at the height of torrential rains that inundated most of Metro Manila this week.
“At the height of Tuesday’s intense rain and flooding all over the country, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos trooped to Twitter to spread critical flood information, as well as to mobilize rescue and relief operations,” Smart Communications, the country’s leading mobile network, said in a statement.
“Even as the torrential rains rendered several families stranded and helpless, with flooded homes and without electricity, we saw how people found their mobile phones–and mobile Internet–especially useful to stay connected,” Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando Vea said.
Smart said about 93.9 percent of the country’s Internet users were also active on social network facebook.com. Filipinos are able to access the Internet, Vea said, due to the availability of cheap mobile devices and affordable access rates.
“This is certainly good news, but, frankly, not really surprising. Filipinos have always been active in social media and we are increasingly using mobile phones to tweet or post on Facebook,” he said.
“With a strong and resilient network like Smart, you’re sure to receive every tweet, every update, and you can rely on your network not dying out on you when you need connectivity the most,” Vea said.
The PLDT group, of which Smart is a part of, ended the first half of the year with 3.1 million Internet subscriptions.