2	Hi5, Thailand's, Most, Popular, Mobile, Social, Network,, Says, Opera

Statistics from Opera’s state of the Mobile Web have shown an explosion in mobile social networking across the Southeast Asian region.

According to the report, which is uses data from mobile uses using the Opera mobile web browser on their phone only, Google is the top destination for mobile internet users in Thailand.

Interestingly Strangely, the report ranks Hi5 second making it the country’s number one mobile social network despite the enormous growth and popularity of Facebook in the country and its optimisation for mobile.

Thailand’s list in full is.

1. Google

2. Hi5

3. Live.com

4. Facebook

5. Hotmail

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It seems very unlikely that Hi5 would score more traffic than Facebook despite its statistical advantage with 6 million users in Thailand compared to Facebook’s 2 million.

The report says more about Opera mobile users than Thailand’s 12 million mobile internet users (see here for mobile internet usage in Thailand statistics) – it seems Opera mobile customers prefer Hi5 over Facebook.

It is no surprise to Google and Microsoft (live.com and hotmail) up there given the size of popularity of both brands in Thailand.

Analysis of the Southeast Asia results below comes from allfacebook.com.

Facebook’s mobile usage growth in South East Asia in 2009 has been astounding by all counts.

The social network is now the top most visited site in Indonesia, Philippines, and Brunei, second most visited site in Malaysia and Singapore – just behind Google, third most visited site in Cambodia – behind Google and Yahoo, and forth most visited site in Thailand and Laos.

Although Google is still the most visited destination in most of the South Asian countries, the lead might prove to be fickle, given Facebook’s recent gains.