Although Facebook Inc.’s (NASDAQ: FB) user base is currently equivalent to seventh of world’s entire population, the social networking giant is not content as it looks to expand in untapped regions , more particularly in the Middle-East and Northern Africa region (MENA).
There is no reason why the Company shouldn’t continued to focus in MENA region since numbers (growing users base) clearly shows its growing popularity.
According to a data provided by Socialbakers, a market insight company focusing on social networks—Facebook saw its user base grow by 10 percent in the MENA region in 2012, adding over 10 million new users.
The research also showed that Facebook was witnessing 21 registrations per minute in the region.
In terms of growth in the user-base, Qatar was the fastest growing market in 2012 with a growth rate of 115 percent followed by Libya 81 percent and Iraq 81 percent. Egypt, where the Arab-spring started in 2011 through a post in Facebook, saw users base grow 2.5 million new users, the highest growth in absolute terms.
Among businesses, one sector which has seen the largest Facebook presence in the region is Media, having average page size of 431 million. Some other sectors that are very popular include E-commerce, fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) and airlines, with average page size of 369 million, 297 million and 213 million respectively. Sectors that are least popular in terms of average page size include alcohol and fashion, as people, in most cases, tend to be religious in this region.
“Overall, it’s clear that Facebook is becoming an inherent part of lives, business and people in MENA countries. Based on statistics that show a high number of social interactions between the top brands and their customers, it is evident that marketers are increasingly becoming aware of Facebook’s role in driving business growth,” wrote Socialbaker in its research work.
In some other markets, India continues to be number three market, globally, in terms of user base; however, the penetration rate is merely 5.24 percent. Indonesia is currently ranked number 4 in terms of users’ base, having penetration rate of 20.92 percent.
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