Asia has significantly outnumbered the United States when it comes to Facebook population. Out of the 955 million users of the said social networking site, 26% of those users are from Asia.
North America has been dominating the use of Facebook over the past years. Socialbakers claim that the U.S.’ position started to weaken in the first quarter of 2011. Unlike the rapid increase of Facebook users in other parts of the world, the number of Facebook users in the U.S. increased by only 0.53%. According to Socialbakers, as of August 2012, North America is only third in the list of continents on Facebook.
Asia increased by mere 0.43% since June 2012. However, this was just enough to outgrow Europe that was formerly leading the list. Asia currently has more than 245 million Facebook users.
Here are the top five continents with the most Facebook users:
| Rank | Continent | Number of users | Penetration (%) |
| 1 | Asia | 245,730,540 | 6.35 |
| 2 | Europe | 241,445,560 | 29.72 |
| 3 | North America | 235,872,660 | 44.63 |
| 4 | South America | 133,471,000 | 33.65 |
| 5 | Africa | 45,687,520 | 4.90 |
Other independent analysts concluded that the increase of Facebook users cannot be taken for granted. The population growth of Facebook users came from some of the top 10 fastest moving countries such as India, Indonesia, and Philippines. Facebook is also gaining success in Japan and South Korea as it gained on the said countries’ local social networks namely Mixi and Cyworld.
The efforts of Facebook to translate and localize its websites played a part in its success in Asia. The increase of mobile users also contributed to Facebook’s accomplishment with Asia being the second largest Facebook mobile continent thanks to its more than 134 million users. China and Russia are the countries that could actually bring more Facebook users. Facebook might have a hard time penetrating such countries but the situation can be improved through a growing mobile fan base.
However, unless Facebook content can truly mirror and show Asia’s local cultures and offer relevant and important search and ad suggestions, it’s success might just become useless.