Facebook was again the leading option in Q3 2012 for social logins, among online users who opted to use a social network identity to speed up registration on sites across the web, according to October 2012 data from Janrain. Facebook gained 6% points quarter-over-quarter to pass majority share for the first time, at 54%, extending its lead over second-place Google, which lost 5% points to 25% share.
Facebook’s upward trend is accelerating. For the previous 5 quarters, its gains had been between 1 and 4 percentage points, so this quarter’s 6% point jump represents something of an anomaly. At the same time, Google had held fairly steady during that earlier time period until its 5% point drop this past quarter.
The remaining top choices in Q3 were Twitter, which finally cracked 10% share, followed by Yahoo (7%), Windows Live (2%) and all others, at 2%.
Retail Logins Relatively Competitive
Facebook leads social login preferences in all site categories measured – retail, consumer brands, media, entertainment, gaming and music-related sites (where it is preferred by two thirds of users). Google holds second place in each of those verticals, but its strongest showing is in retail (30%), where Facebook is at its weakest (50%).
Paypal is gaining steam on retail websites, increasing its share of social logins to 10% in Q3, up significantly from 2% in Q4 2011.
Facebook Steals Thunder In Mobile Social Logins
Facebook was the only gainer in Q3 for mobile app logins, up 9% points to 63%. Google was down to 21% (-6% points), Twitter to 10% (-3% points), and Yahoo to 5% (-2% points). Other networks continued to be marginal players, dropping to just 1% share.
Social Sharing More Up For Grabs
Facebook and Twitter remained the most popular networks for social sharing (54% and 39% in Q3, respectively), both holding fairly steady from prior quarters. LinkedIn, Yahoo and Google are distant third, fourth and fifth choices, at 3%, 2% and 2% respectively. Janrain introduced support for sharing via email to Gmail contacts in June 2012 and measured Google for the first time in Q3, so that small percentage is a fairly significant debut for Google.
About the Data: Janrain analyzed the social login and social sharing preferences for online users across the more than 365,000 websites that use Janrain Engage.
