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November 25, 2007
A look at Facebook's International Growth during the past 30 days:
I was wondering how much Facebook has grown since I first started tracking their growth numbers 30 days ago. When looking at the chart below, Facebook's rapid worldwide growth is especially amazing when considering that in 16 of the top 20 countries experiencing this rapid growth, English is not the primary language.
According to the number of worldwide Facebook Users in 31 countries as shared by Facebook on November 25, 2007 as compared to the information shared on October 26, 2007, Facebook's user population grew at the amazing rates seen below:
Growth in North America was “only” 8.85% during the same period.
In Region Growth – from Oct 26th to Nov 25th 2007:
Asia: 128.00%
South America: 59.91%
Pacific: 34.40%
Africa: 18.88%
North America: 8.85%
I also was wondering what the current penetration of Facebook usage was around the world and which countries Facebook was most popular in, where English was not the primary language spoken.
To get to these results, I did a manual mashup of the country statistics Facebook provides together with the country populations published by the CIA Factbook. My study was limited to only the 31 countries Facebook provides user information for.
Overall, Facebook currently has the highest penetration (when looking at users/population) in the following countries:
1. Canada
2. Norway
3. UK
4. Sweden
5. Australia
6. USA
7. Singapore
8. New Zealand
9. UAE
10. Lebanon
And in countries where English is not the primary language, the top Facebook countries currently are:
1. Norway
2. Sweden
3. UAE
4. Lebanon
5. Israel
6. Turkey
7. Switzerland
8. France
9. Colombia
10. Netherlands
And it seems the international market for social networks remains wide open.
Tags: Facebook, Social Media, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on November 25, 2007 03:18 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Hi, these are interesting stats. Is Facebook stil in the English language in all these places? Bet French-language purists are horrified, if so!
Posted by: Kathy Brewis at December 27, 2007 09:38 AM
Hi Jeff,
just posted some new statistics at http://thekillerattitude.com/2007/12/more-facebook-statistics.html
Among other things - 16 more countries available. (Including Philippines as requested by Jim here in the comments)
Posted by: Johan Myrberger at December 20, 2007 06:17 PM
Johan,
I supposed we will both find out the answer to the mystery in the weeks ahead. Overall the growth has been the smallest in the countries with the highest overall penetration so maybe we are also starting to see the effects of saturation. Not sure yet. But looking forward to finding out.
Posted by: Jeff Pulver at November 26, 2007 06:28 AM
Hm, have a look at the growth week per week. I did the number crunching at http://thekillerattitude.com/2007/11/is-facebook-growth-declining.html
Is the growth declining? Why?
Posted by: Johan Myrberger at November 26, 2007 06:10 AM
I totally agree with Brad about the spamminess of the apps… it’s annoying.
I’m always looking for Hungary to appear, but then I realise we have our www.iwiw.hu which has been around for longer than most of the other social networking sites :)
Posted by: Henrik Pauli at November 26, 2007 02:17 AM
I knew something was odd when I started finding almost all my old friends from the first 2/3 of my life, which were in Canada, on FB. It just seemed too good, and then I learned how Canada's penetration was so high. Realize that that number above, almost 1/4 the population, is including the babies and the rest. The penetration among regular internet users is very high, and among 15-25s it almost a must. Hard for somebody else to get in there.
If only facebook would make apps less of a spam-load!
Posted by: Brad Templeton at November 25, 2007 09:45 PM
Hi Jeff -
Would you happen to have the stats for the Philippines?
jim in manila
Posted by: jim ayson at November 25, 2007 08:20 PM
Thanks for crunching the numbers Jeff! It's all very interesting. :)
Posted by: Connie Bensen at November 25, 2007 06:33 PM
1) Not a single country from South America. I see an opportunity....
2)Why is COLOMBIA so often misspelled? (Phonetics get in the way?)
Posted by: Pablo Baqués at November 25, 2007 06:21 PM
These are good figures although there are the occasional anomalies, i.e. where the UAE rate in relation to other non English speaking countries. it also suggests that language regionalisation is not a must for a site to be adopted by a large crowd of people although it might help.
It's proof that English is widely accepted as the language of choice for online content, for the moment.
When you do some research on facebook you find that quite a few countries have created national groups. There are groups like "combien de Suisse sommes nous sur Facebook" i.e. "how many of us swiss are on facebook". That's because there is competition to see which city or country can have the largest presence overall. From a conversation on Net at Nite between Amber Macarthur and Leo Laporte they said that Ontario (if I remember correctly) was the leader in terms of adoption rate although it has been surpassed.
One guy made a population distribution map using the data you have access to through facebook to show where they are in the US and for Europe.
I'd love to see some more detailed stats and a proper analysis of facebook adoption which includes a greater number of factors.
Nice bit of research already.
As an afterthought England has the population of Switzerland using facebook :-) in terms of population numbers.
Posted by: Warzabidul at November 25, 2007 05:22 PM