Facebook's user base increases to 50 million in India

While we already know that Facebook is an extremely popular social networking website in India, new stats clearly show that it has managed to attract millions of users in the past two years. The new statistics revealed by Facebook show that its user base in India has increased from 8 million in 2010 to 50 million now. Moreover, most of these Indian users access the social site from their mobile phones, which is compelling Facebook to rethink its business model for India.

Facebook user base increases

While in countries like the U.S., people starting using the social site on their desktop and then moved to mobile phones, users in India (including first time users) have been accessing the social site on their mobile phones. Kirthiga Reddy, Facebook Director (Online operations and head of office, India) said, “While for other countries it was the desktop which was first used to get in to the portal, in case of India it was the mobile phone. Because many people are going to Facebook first on mobile and they might never go to desktop again. The situation has also prompted Facebook to come out with many innovations so that the site can be accessed through any mobile phone”.

Facebook for India has shown immense growth in past two years. According to the information available on the Facebook official website, it had 901 million active users at the end of March 2012, and approximately 80 percent of these monthly active users were outside the US and Canada. Reddy also spoke about their strict policy of not allowing children below 13 years of age to use the social site. "Our policy is that children below 13 years of age are not allowed... we have taken that very seriously. Anytime someone is being reported being under 13 (of age), we immediately look into that and take action. There is a lot of education and initiatives we engage in," she added.

Facebook only recently launched its App Center in India. The launch came after the social networking giant's announcement about the App Center going global. App Center makes it easy to find apps through your friends, and gives apps another way to grow. Each person has a personalized experience in the App Center, with recommendations based on the apps they and their friends use, whether it be games, fashion, food, fitness, travel, or any other lifestyle app. The apps are shown according to recommendations by users. The App Center is available on mobile via the Facebook app for iOS and Android, or by accessing Facebook.com on mobile.

In recent reports, about how researchers from the University of Missouri developed a new scale, which can help judge one’s personality from the way they use Facebook. The study claims that all those people who like high-risk activity tend to update their statuses often, and also upload photos and interact with friends frequently. On the flip side, those who are reserved, rarely scroll through Facebook’s “news feed”, and don’t indulge in uploading photos or actively engaging with their friends. [va Tech2]