Facebook dominates Social Media users in Netherlands

Ever since local platform Hyves shut down its social networking operations in October 2013, the social media landscape in the Netherlands has been dominated by Facebook, reports eMarketer.com

Recent research by Newcom Research & Consultancy found that Facebook had over 9 million users—and no other social network even came close. Nevertheless, Facebook may be beginning to lose its appeal among youth in the country, while the share of young internet users who use smaller social networks such as Pinterest is on the rise.

According to Newcom, there were 9.4 million Facebook users in the Netherlands in January 2015. Of them, 6.6 million used the site daily, representing an increase of 8% compared with a year earlier. Google+, which replaced Twitter as the second most popular social network in the country in terms of daily usage, had 1.3 million visitors to its site every day. Nevertheless, Pinterest, still a relatively small social network in the Netherlands, saw the strongest year-over-year growth in its daily user base as the number of internet users in the country who used the site at least once per day more than doubled year over year.

Looking at the total number of Pinterest users in the country—1.6 million—the site was most popular among younger generations. According to the research, more than one-fifth of internet users ages 20 to 39 were Pinterest users in January 2015, compared with 14% a year earlier. Pinterest user penetration among those ages 15 to 19 also increased year over year, from 13% in January 2014 to 17% in January of this year.

At the same time, the number of young Facebook users in the Netherlands declined for the first time since Newcom began running its survey in 2010. In fact, the total number of Facebook users ages 15 to 19 fell by 12% in January 2015 compared with a year earlier, and while there was some growth among those ages 20 to 39, it was slight, at just 1%.

Source:eMarketer.com