Old buses used for public transport. Photo: Mădălin Necșuțu/BIRN

Moldovans are moving over to Facebook and dumping its Rusian rival, according to a new survey.

The number of Facebook accounts in Moldova rose in 2017 by 19.3 per cent from 2016 to 910,000, according to a report by Gramatic brand agency.

In the meantime, use of the other popular social network in Moldova – Odnoklassniki – used especially by Russian speakers, fell by 25 per cent, from 1.1 million users in 2016 to 885,860 in 2017.

The main social networking for brands and companies in Moldova remains Facebook.

The most active city on Facebook remains the capital, Chisinau, which has 540,000 users, followed by Balti, with 44,000, and then Tiraspol, capital of the breakaway Transnistria region, which has 28,000 users.

The 18-34 age group represents 55.9 per cent of the total number of users on Facebook.

The numbers of Instagram accounts also increased sharply in 2017, by 88 per cent, to 470,000.

Although a small and poor country, Moldova ranks among the top countries with Internet access at gigabite speeds, according to a study made in May 2017 by Viavi Solutions, which specializes in monitoring access to the global data network.

Moldova is in third place in its global ranking, surpassed only by Singapore and South Korea. According to published data, the degree of coverage of gigabite technologies in Moldova is 90 per cent.