Report: Social Networks Surpassed 2 Billion Users For First Time Last Year

There’s a new report out from Strategy Analytics, which looks at the growth in usage and advertising spend across major social networks. One of the more interesting findings is that social netwo...
Report: Social Networks Surpassed 2 Billion Users For First Time Last Year
Written by Chris Crum

There’s a new report out from Strategy Analytics, which looks at the growth in usage and advertising spend across major social networks. One of the more interesting findings is that social network usage surpassed 2 billion users for the first time in 2014, with Facebook accounting for 68%.

Ad spend across the various social networks grew by 41% globally reaching a total of $15.3 billion. This accounted for 11% of the global digital ad spend, according to the report.

Of social network ad spend during the year, Facebook accounted for three quarters. Twitter accounted for 8%. This year, the firm projects ad spend on social networks to grow by 29%.

“Overall, the social network market continues to show strong growth across all regions as the major social network platforms drive usage and engagement via improved integration of digital media content,” said Leika Kawasaki, author of the report. “While Facebook currently dominates the global social network market, its absence in China allows local social networks such as QZone and Tencent Weibo to gain traction in the rapidly expanding Chinese digital advertising market.”

About 46% of social network users reside in the Asia Pacific region, with China accounting for nearly 25% of global social network users at 495 million users.

North America had the highest ratio of social network users to its population (64%), followed by Western Europe at 55%.

The United States accounted for the largest share of global social network ad spend at4 1% and totaling $6.2 billion in 2014. That’s an increase of 35% year over year. The UK came in second in that departmentat 8.2% of global social network ad spend. China was third at 8%.

The U.S. also had the highest social network ad spend per social network user at $31.37. The firm projects this to grow 27% to $39.84 in 2015.

You can find the full report here.

Image via Facebook

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