• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, July 24, 2014

Facebook had good news all round this week, as its stellar earnings results were bolstered by its well-received announcement of a new “buy” button. And that’s not all: an independent report from Gigya shows that Facebook is increasing its hold on social log-ins and e-commerce.

Social log-ins, in which Facebook members use their profiles as a virtual identity card for access to other parts of the Web, are a pretty good proxy for overall social activity. According to Gigya, in the second quarter of the year Facebook accounted for 55% of all social log-ins, compared to 27% for Google+ and just 11% for Yahoo, which has been steadily losing share to the first two platforms.

Facebook is even more dominant in mobile, accounting for 64% of all mobile log-ins, ahead of Google+ at 25% and Twitter at 7%. And the number goes up for e-commerce, as Facebook provides 75% of all log-ins for online transactions, while Google+ provided just 16% of e-commerce identities, and Amazon lagged far behind at 3%.

Turning to categories, Facebook was the leading identity provider for media and publishing sites and apps, at 49%, while Google+ accounted for 29%, Yahoo took 11%, and Twitter provided 7%. For consumer brands Web properties, Facebook provided 67% of log-in identities, while Google+ contributed 19% and Twitter 8%. Among travel and hospitality Web properties, Facebook provided 70% of social log-ins, while Google+ accounted for 18% and Yahoo came third with 5%. 

For education and non-profit Web properties, Facebook accounted for 79% of log-ins, dwarfing Google+ at 13% and Twitter and Yahoo, both at 3%.

Globally, Facebook’s degree of dominance in social log-ins varied from region to region. It faced the most competition in North America, with 53% of log-ins versus 29% for Google+. In Europe, Facebook accounted for 62% of log-ins, compared to 18% for Google+, while in South America Facebook soared to 82%, versus 11% for Google. In Africa, Facebook also took 82%, compared to 7% for Google+. In Asia, Facebook contributed 78% of log-ins, compared to 8% for Sina and 6% for QQ.