Google’s social network Orkut never quite caught on in most countries, but it remains the most popular social network in Brazil. According to new data from comScore, Orkut remains safely ahead of Facebook there, with 36 million unique visitors last month. Facebook is only the third most popular social networking site in Brazil, but it is growing rapidly, and the site now attracts about 9 million visitors per month – up from just about 1.5 million a year ago. The second largest social networking site in Brazil is Windows Live, which reaches about 12.5 million visitors.

While Facebook’s growth is clearly outpacing Orkut, Google’s site remains far ahead of all of its competitors in Brazil. The site’s visitors also spend far more minutes on the site than the users of any of the other popular social networks in Brazil. The average Orkut user spent 275.8 minutes on the site in August, while the average Facebook user only spent 29.3 minutes on Facebook. While Windows Life’s profiles are quite popular in Brazil, its users only spent 5.5 minutes there and only visit 3.7 times per month (the average Orkut user visits the site at least once per day).

Twitter in Brazil: Highest Penetration in the World
Twitter is the fourth most popular social network in Brazil with about 8.6 million visitors in August. The service reaches about 23% of the Brazilian online population. According to comScore, this is the highest Twitter penetration in the world. Twitter is especially popular among younger users (15 to 24), while Facebook’s popularity in Brazil is higher among older users (25 and over).
It is also interesting to note how popular the relatively new Q&A site formspring.me has become in Brazil. There, the service gets about 3.6 million visitors per month – making it the fifth most popular social network in the country.
Can Orkut Hang On to Its Top Position?
Due to the popularity of Orkut, Brazil has always been a slightly different market for social networks. Given the growing popularity of Facebook, however, we will have to see if Orkut can hang on to its top position in the long run.