Facebook growing hugely in Taiwan, Thailand

Growth across Asia signals no slowing down for this social media monster

Facebook is growing in Asia. A lot.

According to investigations by Inside Facebook, at least four countries saw the site's usage grow by 25% or more between October 1 and November 1. Indonesia and the Phillipines both saw 25% growth, the former from 9.7 million to 12.2 million and the latter from 5.8 million to 7.2 million. Thailand, the second biggest riser, grew from about 1.3 million users to almost 1.7 million, a 30% change. The big winner is Taiwan, which inflated by 52% from 3.3 million users to over 5 million users.

With over 12 million users, Indonesia still beats out its neighbors by a long shot. That growth may continue too, considering that students in the country, as has been seen elsewhere, have lately used Facebook as a tool for organizing protests and street rallies for various causes.

Such huge growth in the space of a month only means good things for Facebook. Though one of its smaller competitors, Twitter, saw an explosion of growth in the early parts of the year, the immediate slow-down that followed had people wondering how long the site would remain popular. Facebook, on the other hand, appears to not be capable of stopping its growth (as if it would want to).

Facebook Statistics has not updated its main numbers since announcing that it hit the 300 million member mark. According to their statistics, 50% of active users log in to the site on any given day and 35-year-olds and up are the fastest growing demographic. Furthermore, with the site available in over 70 languages, it comes as no shock that 70% of Facebook users reside outside the U.S. Since the time for the largest domestic growth has likely already passed, the percentage of foreign users should only rise in the future.

(table source: Inside Facebook)