Inside Facebook

Facebook gained more than 2 million new people across Latin America and the Caribbean in September to reach 35.4 million monthly active users, according to our most recent Global Monitor report. While Colombia is still the largest Facebook country in the region, with 6.51 million users, Argentina and Mexico have about caught up.

Mexico grew the most out of the 22 countries we track in the region. It gained 470,000 users to reach 5.12 million monthly actives. Argentina gained the second-most users, with 286,000 new people, to total 6.42 million. Other notables include Venezuela: Colombia’s neighbor passed 4 million monthly actives in August to reach 4.17 million, then it gained 261,000 more users last month to reach 4.42 million this past month. Colombia and Chile, the two Latin American countries that saw the most early growth, are still going pretty strong, having gained 160,000 and 179,000 new users, respectively. Peru is also coming up, having grown by 108,000.

And, in non-Spanish speaking Latin America, Brazil is continuing to see more Facebook growth — although nowhere near some of the other countries, yet. It grew 168,000 people to reach 1.66 million monthly actives.

Much of Latin America still has relatively low Facebook penetration. Chile is in the lead with 33%, by far the highest. The islands of Puerto Rico and The Bahamas have penetration rates in the low 20s. Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Colombia all have rates of around 15 percent. Facebook’s growth in the region is not the fastest we’ve seen, but it is significant and steady, so we expect it to continue.

You can see more information on Facebook’s growth around the world in the Global Monitor report.