The FINANCIAL -- It’s no secret that Twitter is catching on in France, but an analysis
from November suggests a surprising group is leading the way: users 55
and older.
According to comScore Media Metrix, the number of visitors to the Twitter website from members of that age group increased 100% last year, to 1.3 million.
Despite social media as traditionally the province of younger individuals, the 55-and-over crowd is better represented on Twitter than any other age group. The next largest demographic of Twitter users in the country is the 15-to-24-year-old set, of whom there were 1.2 million, representing an increase of 62% over 2011.
Overall, comScore reported that there were 5.5 million Twitter web users in France in November. The analysis focused on visitors to the Twitter website on desktop, not those using Twitter exclusively through a mobile or third-party desktop app—a possible reason why older users figure so prominently. As emarketer Inc. said, there are a significant number of mobile social network users in France, and although the desktop and mobile populations frequently overlap, younger consumers are more likely to use mobile social sites.
In June, comScore MobiLens reported that there were over 1.5 million mobile Twitter users in the country, making it the second most popular mobile social network after Facebook.
Also worth noting is the large role that social networks, including Twitter, played in the French presidential election last spring, which may have added to its cachet among older users.
eMarketer estimates that there were 21.9 million social network users in France in 2012—a number equivalent to 54% of internet users, and 33.5% of the country’s population. Combining this estimate with the comScore analysis would mean that roughly one in four social network users in France was a Twitter user last year.
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