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Russia has emerged as the most engaged social networking market in the world, with users spending 6.6 hours per month online devoted to social media.

According to the latest report from comScore, two thirds of global internet users access social networks. 734.2 million visited at least one social networking site during the month on May , representing a penetration of 65%. The Russian social networking audience had the highest engagement among the 40 countries canvassed by comScore, with an average of 6.6 hours and 1,307 pages consumed per visitor per month. Brazil ranked close behind at 6.3 hours, followed by Canada (5.6 hours), Puerto Rico (5.3 hours) and Spain (5.3 hours). “In a country as geographically large as Russia, social networking represents a way of connecting people from one corner of the country to the other. The highly engaged behavior of social networkers in Russia offers significant opportunity for marketers and advertisers seeking to reach these audiences,” said Mike Read, SVP & managing director, comScore Europe.

Italy came at the bottom of the tope 20 list ad the US came in at ninth below Germany and the UK.

Of the 31.9 million people who accessed the internet in Russia in April, 18.9 million visited at least one social networking site, representing a reach of 59%. The most popular of sites were Russian based with only Facebook garnering the most attention out of non Russian social networking sites ranking seventh ahead of MySpace at nine.