Facebook Gains More Ground in Southeast Asia
Over a month ago, word leaked out that Asian market leader Friendster was up for sale. At the time, Facebook appeared to be seeing meaningful growth across Friendster’s core markets of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, even as Friendster’s traffic leveled out or dropped off.
This observation came from Google Trends during one look we took, and from both Google Trends and Alexa in others, as well as some interesting anecdotes we’ve heard about. Today, we have more from our own Global Monitor report, in which we analyzed raw data provided by Facebook about its users. In the above four countries, along with other areas including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand, Facebook has seen significant gains in recent months; in most cases, increases from a few hundred thousand users to millions.
Indonesia is now the seventh largest home to Facebook users in the world, with 8.52 million users — 8.23 million of those users joined in the last 12 months. We saw the Facebook base in the country grow by 645 percent in 2008, albeit only reaching 831,000 users by the end of the year. We heard similar stories from users in Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries in June of 2008.
The Philippines comes in at number 14 worldwide for Facebook, with 4.41 million users, up 4.20 million over the past year. Malaysia is close behind, at number 18, with 2.60 million users, 2.05 million in the past year. Singapore is at number 30 worldwide with at 1.59 million, growing by 1.08 million over the last twelve months. Thailand, on the mainland of Southeast Asia, is at number 36, with 1.13 million, 1.01 million of whom have joined in the last year.
And that’s not all. Two predominately Chinese-speaking areas are also picking up on Facebook. Hong Kong, one of the earlier markets in Asia to reach one million users, is now the 21st largest Facebook market in the world, with 2.32 million users. It rose 1.31 million in the last year. Meanwhile, Taiwan is at number 24 with 1.95 million, up 1.87 million over the last year.
While we don’t have the same detailed data on Friendster to compare with Facebook, the shift is presumably continuing one site to another. Google Trends suggests so, again. And, given the growth Facebook is seeing in predominantly Chinese-speaking parts of Asia, one has to wonder how it might fare on mainland China in the future. In that market of 300-some million internet users, local social networks continue to rule.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
We’ve also seen a similiar trend with the growth of SEA traffic on our apps.
Anyone know who is good at monetizing SEA countries though? Our eCPMs are pretty low.
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
[...] Please, read the article from Insidefacebook.com [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I was recently privy to the results of a government-comissioned survey with youths in Singapore regarding their online habits and it shows that the top 3 social networks amongst youths here are 1. Friendster (60+%), 2. Facebook (30+%), and 3. Tagged. Can’t remember the exact percentages. Although Facebook is fast gaining ground, Friendster still seems to be more popular amongst youths in general here in Singapore.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Eric, Facebook is blocked in Mainland China ;-)
September 25th, 2009 at 12:34 am
[...] Related Links [1] All Facebook, Facebook Announces 300 Million Milestone And Cash Flow Positive [2] TechCrunch, Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: A Market Analysis. [3] Grey Review, Snapshot of Social Networking in Malaysia. [4] My recent lecture in Nanyang Technological University, MSc in Technopreneurship & Innovation programme on “Building Online Communities: Trends & Strategies” (in Chinese). I did a case study discussion with the students on a hypothetical scenario with them being consultants to advise on how Facebook can survive in a market like China, and the two most important factors that Facebook has to consider is to work with the authorities and abide by the tight internet regulation and strong localization to the Chinese market drawing ideas from 51.com, RenRen and Kaixin001. [5] Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy, comScore: Facebook now rules Asia. The ComScore statistics are presented here: [6] Inside Facebook, Worldwide Facebook Mobile Usage Up 300% in Last 12 Months. [7] Inside Facebook, Facebook Gains More Ground in Southeast Asia. [...]
September 30th, 2009 at 5:31 am
[...] European and South American countries for the last year and a half, and is now growing in many Asian and Middle Eastern markets more recently. Add Comment [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 7:01 am
[...] has been losing ground to Facebook on its now-home turf of Southeast Asia, including key markets like the Philippines and Indonesia. But the company is looking to change things up, even as it continues hunting for a sale, as [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
[...] grew from 44 million to 50 million in Asia last month, according to our Global Monitor report, gaining six million new users over August — and mostly in three countries. The Philippines grew by 1.38 million people to 5.78 million [...]
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 am
[...] of the four top fish sim games natively coded in Chinese, which is allowing it to take advantage of Facebook’s rapid growth in Southeast Asia. In addition, it may also have something to do with the fact that My Fishbowl has a strong game [...]
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:50 am
[...] of the four top fish sim games natively coded in Chinese, which is allowing it to take advantage of Facebook’s rapid growth in Southeast Asia. In addition, it may also have something to do with the fact that My Fishbowl has a strong game [...]
December 10th, 2009 at 10:36 am
[...] have written in recent months of Facebook’s growth in Southeast Asia. As we near the beginning of 2010, that trend does not appear to be slowing down. Throughout much [...]
April 15th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
[...] ^ Facebook Gains More Ground in Southeast Asia [...]