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22/10/2008 by
7609 views

Facebook Surpasses 110 Million Active Users

Exactly one year ago I wrote the article “Facebook Frenzy” with an overview of Facebook users by country. Time for an update!

CEO Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook

Facebook is still growing at an astonishing rate. Last year (October 2007) the popular social network had 50 million active users. Today, that number has more than doubled to 110 million users!

Although this massive increase, Facebook still struggles in some countries and continents to gain ground. Throughout the world it has to compete with Netlog, MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Bebo and local competitors such as Hyves in The Netherlands (7.5 million profiles), Impulse in Bulgaria (225,000 users) Google’s Orkut in Brazil, iWiW in Hungary (1.7 million), Cyworld in South Korea and Nasza Klasa in Poland (11 million users).

In Turkey they really love social networks with almost 6 million Facebook profiles and 4.5 million Turkish Netlog accounts. Facebook also gains strong in Belgium (Netlog’s home ground) with 1.1 million new users in one year, where Netlog reigns with over 2 million profiles.

While the new Facebook population soars to new heights, the revenues this year will be $265 million or $2,40 per user, according to researcher eMarketer. Well below what Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was predicting eight months ago.

In a recent interview with a blogger for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Mark Zuckerberg minced no words on the matter: “Growth is primary, revenue is secondary”.

Daniel Lyons of Newsweek has its doubts about Facebook’s advertising model. He states: “They’re (=consumers) using Facebook to keep in touch with friends. Putting ads in front of them is like hanging out at a party and interrupting conversations to hawk merchandise.”

We’ll check back with you in a year and see if Daniel Lyons or Mark Zuckerberg was right.

I’ll leave you with an overview of Facebook user growth by country:

Source: Facebook Ads, NewsWeek, CNet, Wikipedia