Philippines leads the world in weekly online media consumption at 58 hours

The Philippines leads the world in weekly online media consumption, with people spending an average of 58 hours on online media each week, according to the Digital 2027 report by We Are Social and Meltwater.

The figure puts the country ahead of Brazil and Nigeria, where weekly online media consumption stands at around 53 hours. The findings highlight the Philippines’ highly engaged digital audience, with implications for brands competing for consumer attention across social media, video and emerging AI-powered platforms.

Released on 21 October, the report found that 81.3% of Filipinos use the internet, representing more than 95.8 million people. By the number of internet users, the Philippines ranks 12th globally.

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Social platforms remain central to how Filipinos consume content and discover brands. YouTube reaches 86.7% of the country’s internet users, while 84.8% use TikTok. The Philippines has the highest YouTube usage rate globally, according to the report.

Social media is also an important channel for brand discovery, with 45.9% of Filipinos discovering brands through these platforms. This is the fourth-highest rate worldwide, reinforcing the role of social content in shaping consumer awareness and consideration.

AI enters the search journey

The report also points to growing use of artificial intelligence in how Filipinos find information. Some 71.7% of Filipinos use AI to search for information, exceeding the global average of 60.4%.

However, the use of AI to research potential purchases remains comparatively lower. Only 23.8% of Filipinos use AI for this purpose, against a global average of 26%.

For marketers, the findings raise questions about how AI-powered discovery will fit alongside established search and social media strategies, particularly in a market where online media consumption is exceptionally high.

“AI is changing how people discover brands, but social remains central to where people spend their time and form preferences. The conversations, recommendations and opinions people share online are increasingly informing the answers AI gives and the decisions people make,” said Suzie Shaw, CEO of We Are Social APAC.

“For brands, that changes the game. You can optimise what you publish, but you don’t control what people say about you. GEO makes the strength of your reputation and the communities you build more important than ever. The brands that win won’t just be the ones that appear in AI-generated answers, but the ones people are genuinely interested in, talking about and recommending in the first place,” she added.

Online shopping and paid content remain strong

Digital consumption also translates into online purchasing and paid content. The report found that 56.6% of Filipinos buy something online each week, slightly above the global average of 55.7%.

Meanwhile, 70.6% pay for some form of digital content each month, compared with 69.3% globally.

These figures point to an audience that is not only spending substantial time online but is also participating in digital commerce and paying for online content.

For brands and publishers, the combination of high media consumption, social-led discovery and weekly online purchasing makes the Philippines a market where digital touchpoints play a significant role across the consumer journey.

Global internet use reaches 6.15 billion

The Philippine findings form part of a broader shift in global digital behaviour. Digital 2027 estimates that 6.15 billion people use the internet, equivalent to 73.9% of the world’s population.

Social media user identities have reached 5.81 billion, or 69.9% of the global population, after increasing by 151 million over the past year. The report also estimates that 3.24 billion people actively use generative AI tools, equivalent to 38.9% of the global population.

Generative AI adoption has grown by 57.2% over the past 12 months, adding 1.2 billion users, according to the report. ChatGPT remains the category leader, attracting twice as many monthly active users as its nearest rival. Meanwhile, active users of Google Gemini’s mobile apps have quadrupled over the past year, and its web user base has grown to more than 60% of ChatGPT’s size.

Yet the expansion of AI has coincided with changes in how people use the traditional web. Across the world’s top 10,000 web domains, monthly traffic has fallen by more than 10% since ChatGPT’s public launch, while time spent using the web has declined by 11.2% over the past 24 months.

Search engines nevertheless remain more prominent than AI platforms for brand research. Online adults are 74% more likely to say they visit search engines when researching brands than AI platforms, according to the report.

Social media and online video continue to command significant attention. The typical internet user now spends an average of 19 hours and 18 minutes per week on these platforms, up 3.8% year on year. TikTok leads in average daily time spent per active user, at one hour and 55 minutes, while YouTube captures the largest share of total global social media time.

“Across APAC, where digital behaviours and platform preferences vary widely between markets, brands can no longer rely on a single channel to reach their audiences. With generative AI adoption surging nearly 60% in the last year, the customer journey is being rewritten in real time, changing how people discover information and evaluate brands,” said Mimrah Mahmood, Meltwater’s APAC vice president of enterprise sales.

“To keep pace, marketers and communicators must pivot from siloed channel tracking to understanding their total brand footprint across news, social, search, and AI-powered environments. Because cultural context and language heavily shape how APAC audiences perceive brands, bringing together media, social, and AI intelligence is now essential for teams to spot emerging shifts and focus their efforts where it actually moves the needle,” he added.

Digital 2027 is the latest annual report from We Are Social and Meltwater. Its 900 pages draw on data from sources including GWI, Similarweb and Statista to examine digital adoption and behaviour worldwide.

The Philippine country report is scheduled for release next month, with further data on local digital trends and behaviours expected to follow.

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