| Azlan Othman |

BRUNEI Darussalam ranked well below the worldwide mobile banking average of 41 per cent while also ranking below the 37 per cent average global usage of mobile wallets.

This was revealed in the Digital 2019 report released by the social media management platform Hootsuite and global media agency WeAreSocial.

Southeast Asia topped the charts in the growth of unique Internet, mobile and social media users over the course of 2018, the report stated.

Driven by a young and tech-savvy population, Southeast Asia is quickly becoming the world’s fastest growing Internet market with millions of new users coming online every month.

With a population of over 659 million and a collective gross domestic product of USD2.5 trillion, Southeast Asia is on track to become the world’s fifth largest economy by 2020. The digital economy reached over USD30 billion in 2015, and is expected to soar in upcoming years to reach nearly USD200 billion by 2025.

In a region where mobile data is cheap and smartphone penetration is ever-growing, it’s no wonder that Asia Pacific is the leading region when it comes to mobile data traffic. Last year, data use grew by 29 per cent to reach nearly 19.5 billion gigabytes’ worth of data per month – far ahead of the second-most data-thirsty region of western, central and eastern Europe, where fewer than five billion gigabytes are consumed monthly.

The majority of Southeast Asia’s nations are all above the worldwide average of 115 per cent for mobile penetration.

Southeast Asia is home to several leaders in mobile connectivity as well, a category that accounts for several enabling factors – like infrastructure and affordability – as well as connectivity indicators and mobile network dimensions.

Social media usage has been on the rise across the entire region as well, with more users coming online and immediately opening Facebook accounts than ever before. Across the region, social media penetration reached 61 per cent and mobile social media penetration reached 56 per cent over the course of the past year, making Southeast Asia the second-most active region in Asia Pacific for social media use behind only Eastern Asia.

The Sultanate is among 13 countries globally with the highest social media penetration at 410,000 users or 99 per cent of its ‘eligible’ population (aged 13 and above).

The social media where Bruneians excelled was Instagram. They became the most users per population numbering 220,000 (or 63 per cent of its population aged 13 and above).

According to the latest available data by the report, the total number of monthly active Facebook ‘users’ in the Sultanate was 410,000, up by 11 per cent compared to in 2017. Of the number, 85 per cent of them accessed Facebook via mobile phones. The males dominated Facebook ‘users’ in the country at 56 per cent.

There are 360,000 mobile social media users in Brunei (or 82 per cent of its population aged 13 and above).