The number of Internet users has decreased for the first time in Belarus, and TikTok has almost become the main social network

На русском языке: В Беларуси впервые сократилось число интернет-пользователей, а TikTok почти стал главной соцсетью
На беларускай мове: У Беларусі ўпершыню скарацілася колькасць інтэрнэт-карыстальнікаў, а TikTok амаль стаў галоўнай сацсеткай

DataReportal analysts together with We Are Social and Kepios prepared a fresh report on the latest trends in the use of the Internet, mobile devices, social networks and other electronic platforms in Belarus.

Main data

The report shows that the number of Internet users in Belarus has decreased by 7,029 people or 0.09% for the first time in a year, making 8,030,000 people, which equals 85.1% of the population, while the number of active users of social networks increased by 450 thousand (+11.5%).

Internet speed has also increased, both mobile, which averages 10.33 MBPS, and fixed – 48.39 MBPS on average. In general, Belarusians more often use the Internet from computers (57%) than from smartphones (42%). Google Chrome remains the most popular browser, used by 65% of Belarusian Internet users, while 11% of Belarusians use Safari. As for the operating systems, 77.5% of traffic from Belarus is Android and 22% is iOS. The share of Apple users in Belarus is growing and has increased by 38% over the year.

The top 10 websites according to Alexa statistics are:

1. Google
2. Youtube
3. VK
4. Yandex
5. MAILRU
6. Onliner
7. [Website with pornographic content]
8. Odnoklassniki
9. Kufar
10. Schoolsby

Thus, Google remains the main search engine for the Belarusians (76%), and Yandex comes second (21%). Among the search queries for 2021, the leaders are: «weather», «Yandex», «news», as well as the top 20 queries are «tut by» and «21 vek.»

Social networks

There are 4.35 million users of social networks in Belarus as of February 2022, the number has increased by 11.5% for the year. In this case, women – 59.8%, and men – 40.2%. The leader in traffic to the websites is Pinterest (25.5%), followed by VK, Instagram and Facebook. However, Instagram (+332%) and Linkedin (+259%) showed the greatest growth in traffic.

Facebook users in Belarus decreased by 45,000 over a year and currently stands at 706,000, with the vast majority of users using the social network from their phones.

The most popular YouTube searches in 2021: 

• А4
• Songs
• Song
• Movies
• Men/women [Russian TV-show — ed.]

The most popular social network among Belarusians is Instagram, which added 400,000 users from Belarus over a year and has a total of 3,700,000 Instagram users in Belarus, 61% of them are women. The second most popular social network is TikTok, which has added 439,000 users from Belarus over the quarter, and it is used by 3,080,000 Belarusians in total.

The Belarusian Linkedin audience is also growing, with an increase of 100,000 users in a year. The Belarusian Twitter audience is 187,000 as of February, with a growth of about 40,000 users from Belarus in a year.