4.3m Nigerians on Facebook out of 799m global users – IWS

The figures of Nigerians on the popular social media platform, Facebook has grown to 4,369,740 users out of the 799m recorded by the end last year, December 31, 2011, according to the Internet World Statistics (IWS).

The chief executive officer, Miniwatts Marketing Group, publishers of IWS, Mr. Enrique de Argaez, said in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online that by growing Facebook users to 4,369,740, Nigeria’s Facebook penetration has risen by 2.8 per cent.He noted that social media has become quite popular all over the world, with Facebook described as the social web leader in number of users and at year-end 2011 registered the impressive number of 799 million subscribers worldwide.

In Europe, he said, Facebook has the largest number of subscribers in the world with a record of 223 million, and a penetration rate of 27.4 per cent. While Northern America has the largest Facebook Penetration Rate with 50.3 per cent, an indication he said, shows that one out of every two persons in America has a Facebook account.

Africa, IWS reported with estimated population of 1,037,524,058, had Facebook users as at August 31, 2010 amounting to 17,607,440 million and by June 30, 2011 has reached 30,665,460m, and by December 31, 2011 recorded 37,739,380 million with Facebook penetration rate of 3.6 per cent.

Additionally with 118,848,060m Internet users in Africa, IWS said that as at June 30, 2011, the continent recorded 11.5 per cent penetration rate.

The report has it that Algeria with 34,994,937 population as at 2011 has 2,835,740 Facebook users with 8.1 per cent penetration rate for the period under review.

Angola, IWS said 322,300 Facebook users and 2.4 per cent penetration rate; Benin has 130,240 Facebook users and 1.4 per cent penetration rate, even as Burkina-Faso 95,380 Facebook users on December 31, last year and growing at 0.6 per cent penetration.

Egypt with a population of 82,079,636m last year with 9,391,580m Facebook users as at December 31, thereby growing at 11.4 per cent penetration rate. Just as Kenya which boast of 41,070,934 population in 2011 recorded 1,298,560m Facebook users as at last December in addition to having penetration rate of 3.2 per cent.

South Africa on the other hand with a population of 49,004,031m in 2011, proud itself with 4,822,820 Facebook users by December 2011, thus having 9.8 per cent penetration rate among others.

Remmy Nweke
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