Time spent on Instagram surged by more than 70 percent as young Koreans opt to watch samples and communicate on live feed for shopping and lifestyle tips.

According to local app analysis company WiseApp on Tuesday, 33,000 Android-run smartphone users spent total 2.6 billion minutes in May on Instagram, up 73 percent from a year ago. In total time length, Facebook, stayed atop with a record of 4.6 billion minutes.

Following the two were Naver’s Café (2.0 billion minutes), Naver’s Band (1.9 billion minutes), Twitter (1.5 billion minutes), Daum’s Café (1.3 billion minutes), and Kakao Story (700 million minutes).

By age group, Korean teens’ favorite was Facebook, spending total 2.0 billion minutes, trailed by Twitter (500 million minutes) and Instagram (400 million minutes). Facebook also ranked No.1 among 20s, consuming total 1.5 billion minutes. Their second favorite was Instagram with 900 million minutes consumed and the third was Twitter with 800 million minutes.

Among 30s, Instagram was the leader with total 900 million minutes spent on the app, tagged by Naver’s Café (700 million minutes) and Facebook (500 million minutes). The 40s consumed the longest 700 million minutes on Naver’s Café, 600 million minutes on Naver’s Band, and 300 million minutes on Facebook. The 50s used 800 million minutes on Naver’s Band, 800 million minutes on Facebook, and Kakao Story 300 million minutes.

Instagram has also emerged as a new way to conduct online searches among Korean internet users. Although Naver remains as the top search engine in Korea with people using 92.4 percent of their time on the web portal for online search, 27.1 percent of Instagram users have used the app for online searches on top of logging on to the app for sharing photos and videos, according to a survey conducted by Nas Media.

By Oh Dae-seok and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]