Social media and digital entertainment emerge as top activities for Indonesia’s internet users.
A remarkable 94.2% of internet users polled in Indonesia in H1 2019 had visited social networks in the prior month, according to GlobalWebIndex, and the average time spent with social media was 3 hours, 15 minutes (3:15) per day. These figures were among the highest GlobalWebIndex recorded globally. But several factors should be kept in mind here. Firstly, survey respondents were overwhelmingly young, and most were city residents (see note below). Also, YouTube was included in the social network category, meaning that internet users visiting the video platform were counted as social media users.
Some 91.3% of respondents had listened to music or other audio content online; music streaming accounted for an average of 1:30 daily. In addition, nearly 89% of internet users were video-on-demand (VOD) viewers, spending just over 1 hour per day with digital video content.
Broadcast TV remains massively popular, with penetration of 93.3%. Web users spent an average of 2:04 per day with traditional TV—double the time spent with digital video.
But TV is increasingly being viewed via digital platforms and services. Nearly 63% of internet users had watched shows through TV broadcasters’ catch-up or on-demand offerings, and a similar share (63.9%) had watched TV or films via subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services such as Netflix or CatchPlay.
Affluence is strongly correlated with smart TV ownership in Indonesia. Penetration in the top 25% of households, ranked by income, was 42.3%—double the 21.6% recorded among internet users generally.
