More than 90 per cent of Australians aged over 18 engaged with social networking content via a smartphone during May 2017, according to latest data released today by Nielsen.

Some 12.7 million Australians  accessed a social networking site or app via a smartphone device during the month and the average time per person increased by one hour during May 2017 compared to the previous month.

The top five social networking media brands ranked by unique audience, across all devices, according to Nielsen’s research for May 2017 were:

 

The current events and global news sub-category was steady overall with some movement in the top 10 rankings. Five out of the top 10 increased their unique audience numbers. BBC saw a large jump in unique audience to 2.6 million (+16 per cent) to move to seventh place, up three spots.

Major international news events during May contributed to notable increases in unique audiences to many of the international news entities.

Smh.com.au (3.8 million, -7 per cent), Daily Mail Australia (3.1 million, +5 per cent) and The Guardian (2.9 million, +0.5 per cent) retained their fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively.

Yahoo 7 News moved to eighth (2.5 million, -11 per cent), The Daily Telegraph retained their ninth position (2.4 million, +3 per cent) and the Herald Sun moved to tenth (2.3 million, -6 per cent).

News.com.au retained top position in with a unique audience of 5.8 million (-4 per cent). Nine.com.au moved up from third to second place with a unique audience of 4.7 million (0.6 per cent) and ABC News websites moved to third spot (4.6 million, -6 per cent).