The largest social networking site Facebook is now closing in on 1 billion users – a milestone that is likely to be achieved by August this year. The company had confirmed 750 million users in July last year, so the claims of 1 billion users does not surprise much. Gregory Lyons, a senior analyst at iCrossing, predicts the social networking site will hit the milestone in August. Lyons has also posted a chart, using Facebook's present growth rate and linear regression on date from 2008.
In his blog post, Lyons pointed out that Facebook was not growing much in the U.S or U.K., but stressed that users from countries like India and Brazil will fuel the surge. “Both are large countries with millions of potential users who have yet to sign up to Facebook,” he writes. “With only 3 per cent of India’s population on Facebook and 16 per cent of Brazil’s (compared to 49% of America’s population or 47% of the UK’s population) countries such as these will clearly contribute heavily to Facebook’s continued growth.”
With over 800 million users, Facebook is at the top in the social networking segment. But other social networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn are also catching up with Facebook. Google's latest social networking site Google+ has already entered the fray. Google+ had some 49 million total visits in December, according to Experian Hitwise. The same researcher predicts Google+ will have 400 million users by the end of this year.
