Facebook launches PHL office 

Facebook announced on Thursday morning, April 21, the opening of its office in Manila, strengthening the company's investment in the Philippines.

"Today marks a new milestone for Facebook in the Philippines and we are committed to driving innovation that helps Filipinos and business connect in more meaningful ways," said Kenneth Bishop, Facebook's managing director for Southeast Asia, in a press release.

Word of the office launch was broken hours before the event by Dan Neary, Facebook's vice president for the Asia Pacific region, and described the Philippines as "a highly engaged mobile-first nation filled with people who are creative, entrepreneurial and have a strong sense of community," he said.

Facebook appointed Digs Dimagiba to serve as the head of Philippine operations. Dimagiba will lead the local business team in partnering closely with businesses and agencies to ensure that the they get the best value out of Facebook's creative, marketing and business solutions. Prior to joining Facebook, Dimagiba was the head of mobile business at Samsung Philippines.

The Philippine office is Facebook's latest push into Southeast Asia, joining the ranks of its other offices in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. As of December 2015, Facebook's global reach includes 1.59 billion monthly active users as well as hundreds of millions of users on platforms such as Whatsapp and Instagram.

At the press event, Neary said, "There are more mobile devices in the Philippines than there are actual people," and that the Philippines is just one of one hundred nations where the number of mobile devices outnumber people. This and the increasing amount of time that Filipinos spend online using phones and tablets led him to declare that "The world is not 'going mobile' but has [already] gone mobile."

Filipino users are among the heaviest users of social networks like Facebook in not just Southeast Asia, but the rest of the world, spending around 3.1 hours per day on mobile and nearly twice as much time on Facebook and Instagram than on television. And while these numbers present the nation as an important market for Facebook, the company is also looking to encourage businesses—not just large companies but small to medium ones as well—to help them reach their audiences and achieve business objectives.

"Sharing is part of our DNA. Some people want to share things one on one. Some want to blast it out to the world. That is the lens through which we [at Facebook] view sharing." — TJD, GMA News