Singaporeans’ social media app of choice is messaging platform, WhatsApp. While Instagram is the world’s ‘favourite’ social media app, WhatsApp takes the top spot in Singapore for both favourite (27.2 percent) and most used social media platform (74.7 percent) with local users clocking an average of 978 sessions per month in its Android app.
The findings come from the Digital 2024: Singapore report released by Meltwater, a global leader in social and media intelligence, and We Are Social, the socially-led creative agency.
The report finds that Singaporeans are spending an average of 2 hours, 14 minutes a day on social media across an average of 6.9 social media platforms each month. There are 5.13 million social media user identities in Singapore which equates to 85 percent of the nation’s population and sees the nation rank tenth globally for social media adoption versus total population.
Facebook ranks second place as favourite (16.7 percent) and most used (72.7 percent) social media platform in Singapore, while TikTok tops the spot for most time spent in the Android app with a total of 33 hours, 23 minutes per month.
TikTok was the most downloaded app in Singapore in 2023, followed by messaging app Telegram and Bytedance-owned video editing tool Capcut.
Singaporeans like to stay connected with chat and messaging (97.5 percent) being the number one type of app or website they visit, followed by social networks (95.8 percent). Aside from keeping in touch with family and friends (43.4 percent), filling in spare time (35.5 percent) and reading the news (32.6 percent) are the primary reasons that more than a third use social media.
Other key highlights from the report include:
- After people they know, Singaporeans’ favourite social media users to follow are restaurants, chefs and food personalities.
- Singaporeans spend an average of 1 hour, 2 minutes each day using a gaming console, up 20.9 percent year-on-year.
- Digital ad spend in 2023 grew 10.5 percent to SG$2.34 billion to make up 59.7 percent of total ad spend.
- Social media ad spend makes up 24.5 percent share of total digital advertising spend, increasing 11.8 percent in 2023 to $573.5 million.
- Consumers in Singapore spent $1.45 billion on digital media subscriptions and downloads in 2023, up 9.1 percent year-on-year.
- When it comes to online privacy and security, 65.2 percent of consumers expressed concern about what is real versus fake on the internet.
