Saudi Arabia has most active Twitter users; India 21st in the world

If you thought a country like the US or UK leads the list as far as the number of active Twitter users are concerned, think again. The real answer may surprise some, but a study has found that Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest active Twitter users. If you were wondering how India fares, then it’s on 21st spot in the list. The study, carried out by PeerReach showed that a massive one-third, or 31 percent of the Saudi population are monthly active Twitter users. In contrast, India’s Twitter penetration is spread over merely one percent of the entire population, showing that Twitter is still a niche when it comes to social network adopters in India. The survey only accounted for monthly active users who actually use Twitter and not just those who simply login.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“620”] Saudis top charts (Image credit: Getty Images)[/caption]

The US, home of Twitter, came in at the eighth position in the study. Surprisingly, the five countries with the highest Twitter penetration are all where English is not the primary spoken language. Following Saudi Arabia, Indonesia comes in after a wide chasm at 19 percent penetration, followed by Spain, Venezuela and Argentina. Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are two countries that are seeing more users access Twitter through mobiles than the web.

“Our graph with Twitter penetration numbers clearly shows a number of green fields for Twitter. In big countries like Nigeria, Germany and India Twitter usage is still low,” the study said. China, of course, has been excluded from the list considering the fact that Twitter has been banned, with Weibo being the alternative.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“620”] India languishes on position 21[/caption]

Another interesting nugget of information that has emerged from the research is that Twitter is dominated by teens across the world. Facebook might want to sit up and take lessons because only 20 percent of Twitter users in all are above the age of 30. The average Twitter user is 24 years of age, the study finds. The average male age is 26, while women take to Twitter slightly earlier, with the average female age being 22.

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(With inputs from agencies)