| International
[ 2011-06-14 ]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited China in December Facebook usage drops in Britain and US The figures are being cited as sign that Facebook
may have reached saturation point in the countries
where it first enjoyed explosive growth.
Almost 6 million Americans abandoned the site in
May, Inside Facebook said, based on Facebook’s
own advertising tool. At the start of the month
there were 155.2 million US users, compared to
149.4 million at the end, a drop of 3.7 per cent
and the first time it has lost users
month-on-month in the last year.
In Britain meanwhile Facebook lost more than
100,000 users. Norway and Russia registered
similar slips.
And although the site continued to grow worldwide,
the rate of growth fell for the second month in a
row. Facebook gained 11.8 million users in May and
13.9 million in April. Both compared unfavourably
to a typical month in the last 12, in which it
gained more than 20 million new users.
“By the time Facebook reaches around 50 per cent
of the total population in a given country (plus
or minus, depending on internet access rates in
that country), growth generally slows to a
halt,” said Inside Facebook’s Eric Eldon.
The total number of users world wide will
nevertheless soon break 700 million, as it stood
at 687 million at the end of May.
“So far, Facebook has been able to make up
stalls and losses with big gains in
heavily-populated developing countries like
Mexico, Brazil, India and Indonesia,” Mr Eldon
said.
Analysts have recently suggested that Facebook is
planning to enter the huge Chinese market, where
it’s estimated there are now 500 million
internet users.
Other Western web giants, such as eBay and Google,
have found business difficult in China, however.
The online auction market there is dominated by
local competitor Alibaba, and Baidu is by far the
most popular search engine.
Google pulled out of China last year, citing
hacking and censorship concerns, which may also
prove a stumbling block to Facebook. Company
executives have so far failed to answer questions
on whether they would bend to government
pressure.
Success there “could both give it access to
hundreds of millions of users and compromise its
reputation in the US and many other countries
around the world,” said Mr Eldon.
Source - The Telegraph
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