In 2008, social networking websites in India saw a 51% growth in traffic year-on-year, while total Internet audience grew 22%, audience measurement firm Comscore (NSDQ: SCOR) said. Google-owned Orkut tops the list with more than 12 million unique visitors, while Facebook follows with more than 4 million. The highest y-o-y growth was registered by Hi5.com (182%), while Facebook grew 150% and Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace sites grew 110%. Reliance Entertainment’s Bigadda.com slipped 25% according to the report.

All the social networking sites that are doing well in India are global networks, with the only India-specific site being Bharatstudent.com, which came 3rd in the popularity chart with more than 3 million unique visitors. The full release, which has a report card that might interest you, is here.