Business

Wednesday April 8, 2009

Survey: 45% of Malaysian youth use Internet over other media


KUALA LUMPUR: Forty-five per cent of Malaysian youth aged between eight and 24 plan to use the Internet more often over other media, according to global market research company Synovate.

Synovate’s latest annual Young Asians survey also found that 40% of Malaysian youth used the Internet to keep them up-to-date while 43% said the Internet gave them useful information.

“Young Malaysians are definitely turning to the Internet more for their information and entertainment needs and it’s not surprising that the Internet is slowly becoming the medium of choice,” Synovate Malaysia managing director Steve Murphy said in a statement.

“In fact, 25% of Asia’s youth admitted that they just couldn’t live without the Internet and this figure is expected to grow,” he said.

Malaysian youth are active bloggers with close to half (48%) spending a portion of their time blogging. Thirty-eight per cent spend a portion of their time reading blogs without making any comments while close to a quarter (22%) both read and make comments on blogs.

“Malaysians in general have embraced blogging and bloggers alike as a way of expressing themselves. A total of 21% of Malaysian youngsters create and update their blogs regularly and this figure is expected to rise,” Murphy added.

Apart from blogging, social networking has also occupied the online activity list of Malaysian youngsters with over one third (38%) reading other people’s social network profile pages. Thirty-one per cent update their own profile pages while 44% take the initiative to read other people’s social network profile pages as well as update their own.

The fourth annual Synovate Young Asians study, sponsored by Microsoft Advertising, MTV and Yahoo!, was conducted in the fourth quarter of last year and covers 12 markets in Asia.

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