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Emarketer Technology Facebook

India now has Facebook's largest share of users in Asia Pacific

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By Taruka Srivastav, Reporter

June 28, 2017 | 3 min read

In the same week Facebook announced it hit the 2bn mark, India has become Facebook's largest market in Asia Pacific by share (32.6%) of users, according to an eMarketer report.

India now has Facebook's largest share of users in APAC

India now has Facebook's largest share of users in APAC

Around 182.9 million people in India log on to Facebook regularly in 2017, equating to 69.9% of social network users and 42.6% of internet users in India, according to the report.

According to Monica Peart, eMarketer’s senior forecasting director: “Mobile devices continue to fall in price, making them increasingly accessible to the average Indian consumer. This trend will continue to positively impact the growth of various internet activities, including regular use of the country’s most popular social networking platform, Facebook.”

India is constantly rising in the digital charts as the government is pushing its digital India scheme, while networks like Reliance Jio 4g are providing internet for a very cheap price.

The number is also an increase from that reported by Mary Meeker Internet Trends 2017, which reported that Facebook had dropped down in popularity in India. eMarketer expects the user growth to continue throughout the forecast period, increasing 20% this year. By 2021, 46.6% of internet users in India will access Facebook at least once per month.

Chinese smartphones, which are cheap but have good features, have already toppled the Indian smartphone makers ,which has further improved the use of mobile devices to access internet. This year, 96.5% of Facebook users will be access the platform via mobile device, up from 71.3% in 2012.

Fast-developing digital markets like India are helping to boost Facebook numbers globally. Overall, Facebook had one billion users in October 2012, so it has taken a little less than five years to double it.

Commenting on the milestone, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post: "As of this morning, the Facebook community is now officially two billion people! We're making progress connecting the world, and now let's bring the world closer together. It's an honor to be on this journey with you."

By comparison, Twitter will total 11.0 million users in India this year, representing 4.2% of social network users and 2.6% of internet users in the country. That number is forecast to reach 15.7 million by 2021, according to eMarketer.

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