Facebook remains by far the most popular social network in India. In April 2014, Facebook crossed 100 million userbase mark in India and by end of the year, it will reach close to 109 million.
This year, Facebook’s userbase in India will grow at 40 percent, more than double compared to any other Asia-Pacific market and most that any other country in the world. Though the growth rate is fastest, it is slightly lower than 43.8 percent registered by Facebook last year.
While most of the developed countries like US, UK, Japan and others are now growing in single digits, India’s growth rate will remain in double figures for atleast next 5 years.
Here is a comparison of Facebook’s growth in major Asia-Pacific countries.
In terms of number of Facebook users, USA has roughly 185 million of them currently, the largest in the world. However, India is expected to cross that number in next 2 to 3 years.
eMarketer report says, “India’s rapid growth is not due to a small installed base of Facebook users. Already, by the end of 2013, nearly 78 million people in the country logged in to the site at least monthly. By the end of 2018, more than half a billion people in Asia-Pacific will use Facebook each month.”
Here is how India’s Facebook userbase will grow in next few years:
Even with such high numbers, in our view, we think eMarketer has estimated the growth rate quite moderately. Interesting aspect about Indians accessing Facebook is that nearly 84 percent of them access it through their mobile phones. And with prices of smartphones coming down, the number of smartphone users in country are expected to grow significantly.
When it comes to usage of various social platforms by Indians, Facebook remains quite strong. The 2nd most popular social platform for Indians is Twitter which has roughly 35 million users, followed by Google+ and Linkedin. Pinterest, the youngest of social networks has grown quite significantly in India over last couple of years.