Sri Lanka (Commonwealth) _In Sri Lanka, media and internet usage have increased dramatically; currently, more than 60% of the population uses the internet. This expansion has sparked more engagement on social media and digital media outlets, opening up a plethora of options for companies across the country. This was revealed in `Digital Outlook 2024’ produced by Asia Pacific Institute of Digital Marketing (APIDM), along with the University of Kelaniya’s Department of Marketing Management.
This study provides the most recent information and insights into the ever changing digital industry, making it an invaluable tool for marketing and business experts. According to the report, Sri Lanka continues to see a rapid increase in internet usage, outpacing all of its regional peers, despite confronting economic setbacks due to policy mistakes during the pandemic, which resulted in an economic downturn for two consecutive years and slow growth projections for 2023–2025.
In the last six years, the percentage of Sri Lankans using the internet has increased by almost three times, to around 40% of the total population. A thriving mobile-first internet economy is driving this expansion and encouraging a wide range of creative uses. These changes have also resulted in a notable infusion of investment into the nation. Sri Lanka is seeing a higher rate of digital investment than China, India, and the rest of Asia, encompassing both developed and developing nations, according to the analysis.
Because of its underdeveloped infrastructure, Sri Lanka is still in its infancy when it comes to social media usage, trailing behind its neighbors in the area, such as India. Telecommunications firms were planning to roll out their 4G networks and get ready to replace 3G with 5G before the crisis in 2022. But a year afterwards, the 5G project is still not underway, and it looks like it will take another year to get going.
However, this infrastructural gap isn’t stopping businesses from carrying out their plans. The majority of well-known retailers are already well-established online. The biggest retailer in the nation, Cargills, has 500 locations and runs Cargills Online, the biggest non-platform e-commerce site. It also maintains an active presence on all important social media channels. A research that examined Cargills’ social media activity even discovered that the company’s digital marketing initiatives had greatly increased sales at all of its physical locations.
According to the most recent poll, there will be around 8.4 million active social media users in Sri Lanka in 2022 (those who log in at least once a month). About 38.1% of the addressable demographic is represented by this. Additionally, from 2021 to 2022, the user base increased by 3.8%.
Due to the poor internet penetration, Sri Lanka’s social media sector is still in its early stages. That being said, social media use is already pervasive among internet users.
According to a poll by the Asia Pacific Institute of Digital Marketing, 85% of internet users in Sri Lanka use YouTube, while 90% of them use Facebook to get news and information. Compared to traditional news sources like TV (74%), radio (34%), and newspapers (24%), these numbers are greater.
Facebook is the most popular social media network and is vital to citizen social involvement. According to the most recent statistics, which was released in January 2023, there are now 7.69 million Facebook members in Sri Lanka, growing at a pace of 0.89%. The percentage of male and female users is around 61.64% and 38.36%, respectively.
According to the most recent statistics, which was released in January 2023, there are currently 1.51 million Instagram users in Sri Lanka, growing at a pace of 0.95%. Users are roughly divided between males (63.69%) and females (36.31%).
It has been stated that the number of TikTok users in Sri Lanka has increased by around 12%. According to the most recent statistics released in January 2023, there are currently 1.72 million LinkedIn members in Sri Lanka, growing at a pace of 1.13x. The study also shows that young people increasingly consider social media to be their main news source.
It appears that people are becoming less and less confident in the capacity of mainstream media to provide the news in an impartial and truthful way. The public’s confidence in mass media has reached all-time lows, and the media environment is more fragmented than before. According to recent statistics from the Asia Pacific Institute of Digital Marketing (APIDM) annual Digital Outlook Sri Lanka study, individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 are now more likely to claim that social media networks—rather than television—are their main source of news. Television continues to be the primary information source for the older age groups.
For example, 34% of individuals in the 35–49 age range claim to get their news mostly from TV, whereas just 12% cite social media. The difference increases to 53 percentage points, or 56% to 3% respectively, among those 65 years of age and above. Many people are still kept informed about current events via radio and printed newspapers, but neither mediums appear to have a bright future.
