13 Million Facebook users from India as on 16th September 2010(for the latest numbers scroll down to the end of the post or continue reading to understand FB’s phenomenal progress in India)

Facebook as a social networking medium has grown by leaps and bounds in India. This is significant because India (and other countries like Brazil & Pakistan) were the largest consumers of Orkut the Google property that kick started the social networking revolution in India. In fact “Orkutting” and “Scrapping” (sic) had become a part of the lexicon of the average internet savvy user in India much before “facebooking” and “tweeting” did. But over the years (somewhere between 2007  & 2009) the emergence of Facebook as the social network of choice has seen a gradual decline in active Orkut usage.  Demographics data from Orkut shows that India has slipped to 3rd place in number of users and surprisingly the United States, which languished at the bottom earlier, has climbed to second place.

How has the growth of Facebook users in India been? in one word..phenomenal!

Consider this,  Almost a year back, August 14th 2008 to be precise when we wanted to place advertisements on Facebook for an Indian client, to estimate the value and ROI for placing such ads,  Facebook ads was still in its infancy and there were very few Indian companies advertising on Facebook.

The count then, as you can see from the screen shot was 6,85,200 or approximately 7 lakh (0.7 million) Facebook users in India (2008).  Today, on 8th July 2009,  as I write this post there are 29,40,700 users or approximately 30 Lakh (3 million) Facebook users in India*.  On 4th July 2009 the number was 29,00,980, so in the interim 4 days, Facebook added 39,720 new Indian users which is a mind boggling 10,000 users per day. If these numbers as reported by Facebook are accurate and the daily growth continues at this astonishing rate then it won’t be long before  FB catches up with Orkut which purpotedly has 13 million active Indian users (which is almost 40% of the total internet audience in India) and 5 Billion pageviews per month (Source: ComScore). (*Update on the numbers at the bottom of this post)

The year on year growth rate for is FB is 330%!, admittedly not the fastest in the world, but considering the entrenched presence of Orkut and the low internet penetration rate, it’s quite a significant achievement.

We saw this post/interview on BBC’s dot.life by  Rory Cellan-Jones where she asked Sheryl Sandberg,  Facebook COO,  about advertising revenues and long term financial viability of social networking platforms, and are reproducing a portion of it, read the full post here

“I put it to Sheryl Sandberg that each new user, especially those in less lucrative advertising markets like India, must be costing the company money – but she insisted that wasn’t the case:

“Not only are we covering our current costs but we are making major investments in our growth all over the world and our revenue from advertising is covering those costs.”

We are impressed with Sheryl’s rather confident answer, but were perturbed by the question itself…

Now why would India be a “less lucrative advertising market”? Is it the colonial hangover or the effect of  Danny Boyle’s  “Slumdog Millionaire”? Was there any real monetary basis behind choosing India as the scapegoat country?  Why would Indian users cost more money? Does Facebook provide  free meals for underprivileged Indian users when you sign up for an account? Ridiculous!

In sharp contrast to the blogger’s misconception, We see every day that there are plenty of Indian advertisers out there who want to explore Facebook as a viable alternative to Google Adwords.  Yet, Facebook does not have city or state wise targeting in India, non existent  analytics and unsubstantiated click numbers but we also know that they are keen on engaging and building potentially the largest internet savvy population in the coming years from the fact that Facebook is already available in 6 (Malayalam, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil & Hindi) Indian languages.

At the current growth rate Facebook should add another 3-4 million Indian users over the next 6 months.  Google and Orkut have already stepped up their efforts to garner a larger share  of the Indian online advertising  market by pushing up ad spots on Orkut and having a dedicated microsite (with an accurate map of India..now there’s a rarity!) detailing the benefits of advertising on Orkut. What does Facebook have in store? We’ll just have to wait and watch.

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July 30th, 2009:

Since we have been compiling statistics of Facebook Users in India who are 18 years and above : the current number with this criteria stands at 3,486,340 i.e.  35 lakh or 3.5 million

8th July 2009 ==>   29,40,700 users  -  30th July ==> 3,486,340 users, and the difference 5,45,640 users or 0.5 million users in 22 days which is almost 25,000 users/day!

All Facebook Users in India : 3,808,460 i.e. 38 Lakhs or 3.8 million

Other interesting numbers:

13 year olds : 21,140
64 years and older users: 21,560
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October 14th, 2009:

Since we have been compiling statistics of Facebook Users in India who are 18 years and above : the current number with this criteria stands at 4,174,520 i.e.  41 lakh or 4.1 million

30th July 2009 ==>   3,486,340 users  -  14th October ==> 4,175,520 users, and the difference 6,89,180 users or 0.68 million users in 75 days which is almost 9,189 users/day!

So is Facebook losing it’s flaming streak in India? Is that the reason Indian Facebook users are being subjected to aggressive marketing messages ? Read our follow up post on that here

All Facebook Users in India : 4,442,540 i.e. 44 Lakhs or 4.4 million

Other interesting numbers:

13 year olds : 25,220
64 years and older users: 24,940
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March 3rd , 2010:

Since we have been compiling statistics of Facebook Users in India who are 18 years and above : the current number with this criteria stands at 6,455,000 i.e.  64 lakh or 6.4 million

14th October ’2009 ==> 4,175,520 users===> 3rd March ’2010 ==>   6,455,000 users, and the difference 22,79,480 users or 2.27 million users in 135 days which is almost 16,886 users/day!

All Facebook Users in India : 7,040,300 i.e. 70 Lakhs or 7 million!

Other interesting numbers:

Males : 4,662,440
Females: 2,133,240

Twice as many men as women from India.
581,540 users are married
1,869,780 users are single

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September 17th , 2010

Facebook Users in India who are 18 years and above : the current number with this criteria stands at 12,262,780 i.e.  1.2 Crores or 12 million

3rd March ’2010 ==>   6,455,000 users 17th September ’2010 ==> 12,262,780 users===>, and the difference 58,07,780 users or 5.8 million users in 170 days which is almost 34,163 users/day!

All Facebook Users in India : 13,580,100 i.e. 1.3 Crores or 13 million!

Other interesting numbers:

Men : 8,522,780===> 8.5 Million male facebook users in India
Women: 3,554,760 ===> 3.5 Million female facebook users in India

Kids (13yrs or younger): 105,800

Twice as many male facebook users as female from India.

Need help with Facebook advertising? – mail us at info@semkraft.com or fill in your requirements here

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