Asia Pacific, with its large Gen-Y population, has become the fastest growing region of social networking users in the world. Southeast Asian countries such as Philippines and Malaysia have already achieved penetration rates of as much as 85 percent for popular social networking sites. Social media platforms are becoming rapidly commercialized due to the escalating need for social interaction between businesses and customers to promote products and services.
However, free-to-use consumer social networks and the Internet regulation in countries such as India and China, which offer only limited access to social media platforms, have slowed regional adoption of these global platforms. The deployment of localized versions of Facebook and Twitter in these countries could limit the impact of the regulations on the market.
