Worldwide, social networking sites reach more to women than men

According to “Women on Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet” report, made public by comScore, social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, with 75.8 percent of all women online visiting a social networking site in May 2010 versus 69.7 percent of men.

Globally, women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men. Although women account for 47.9 percent of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57 percent of pages and account for nearly 57 percent of total minutes spent on these sites. Women spend significantly more time on social networking sites than men, with women averaging 5.5 hours per month compared to men’s 4 hours, demonstrating the strong engagement that women across the globe share with social sites.

Social Networking’s reach among women is highest in Latin America, where it reached 94.1 percent of females online, and in North America  – 91.0%. Europe saw 85.6 percent of its female online population visit a social networking site in May 2010, while in Asia Pacific, the reach is of 54.9%.

The study also mentions that although men are a majority across global Internet, women spend about 8% more time online, around 25 hours per month. They also spend 20% more time on retail sites, using the most the Comparison Shopping and Apparel sites (24.8% and, respectivelly, 18.7%).

In United States, women buy more online than men. The study also shows that, in most countries, women spend far less time watching online video than men, but dedicate a much higher share of their time watching videos on YouTube.

In terms of smartphones usage in US and Europe, men are the ones that adopted faster this type of gadget.