Visual search engine Pinterest is the fastest growing social media site in Uganda, according to a StatCounter report which shows results generated between January 2018 and January 2019.
According to the report, which was released in February 2019, Facebook takes 60.38% of social media users in Uganda, Pinterest (22.96%), Twitter (12.23%), YouTube (2.88%), Instagram (0.69%), Reddit (0.2%).
According to the graph produced by StatCounter, Pinterest registered its highest growth between December 2018 and January 2019.
And this is the period in which Facebook experienced its biggest dive, from 71.03% of social media users in Uganda to 59.53%.
Twitter experienced growth in this period, moving from 7.02% to 12.3% percent.
YouTube registered a decline in the number of users, from 3.67% to 3.63%.
According to the StatCounter report, social media users in Uganda reduced their presence on social networking sites after the introduction of the social media tax, better known as OTT tax.
Social Media Stats Uganda | StatCounter Global Stats https://t.co/Dn7xF4N36C
— Ibrahim Bbossa #IKB (@IBbossa) March 1, 2019
According to a recent UCC report, when OTT tax was introduced in July of 2018 — 8,049,413 people paid the tax, but this number, in August, reduced by 1.2 million people to 6,871,173, then to 6,844,528 in September.
Internet subscription in Uganda stands at 13,572,396 people.
Going by the UCC report, more than half of the people using the internet in Uganda also use OTT services.
Pinterest popularity among social media users in Uganda
The growth of Pinterest in Uganda is not a unique case since 2018 reports on global social media usage indicate that Pinterest grew faster than popular social media platforms like Twitter and Snapchat.
It’s only Instagram and Facebook that beat it in growth rate.
According to the reports, the app has 250 million monthly active users, a figure that was reached after the app added 25m new users every four months, on average.
This was way better than Twitter which added 9 million.
The StatCounter report does not state why social media users in Uganda are growing on Pinterest, though experts have offered multiple reasons, including enabling cross-platform sharing of pictures, favorable for influencers than Facebook in attracting sales, best for attracting online shoppers.
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