TMCnet News
Pakistan has 7m Facebook users out of 1bn(Flare (Pakistan) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Blurb: There are 69 percent male users and 31 percent female users in Pakistan, compared to 57 percent and 43 percent in Vietnam and 49 percent and 51 percent in Netherlands Box: Facebook crossed the one billion users mark in September, a level of global penetration that is a remarkable achievement for an 8-year-old social network and a heightened challenge to its quest for sustained growth InsighT: The users of Facebook in Pakistan has increased day-by-day. According to latest statistics, over seven million (7384520) Pakistanis use Facebook, putting the country on number 28 in the list of countries where Facebook users are based. Pakistan Facebook demographics are other social media statistics. The largest age group is currently 18-24 with total of 3 692 260 users, followed by the users in the age of 25-34. There are 69 percent male users and 31 percent female users in Pakistan, compared to 57 percent and 43 percent in Vietnam and 49 percent and 51 percent in Netherlands. Although that sounds like a lot of people, the figure is significantly less than half of the Pakistan population that has access to the internet. According Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, more than 20 million Pakistanis are online, which means that the number using Facebook is only 32.86 percent of the total online population. While this is a significant indication of the potential that Facebook can still exploit in Pakistan, what is an even more important fact that comes out of the research is that the number of new users who signed in for a Facebook account increased. Facebook, which was launched in 2004 but opened its doors to the public in 2006, have over 1 billion active users worldwide. Facebook crossed the one billion users mark in September, a level of global penetration that is a remarkable achievement for an 8-year-old social network and a heightened challenge to its quest for sustained growth. Facebook, which has endured a bruising four months in the stock market since a haphazard May 18 initial public offering, has acknowledged that a slowdown in new-user acquisition is inevitable as its worldwide reach expands. The latest quarter's growth appeared likely to come in lower in raw numbers, let alone by percentage, than the April-June quarter's 54 million new users. About 45 million joined from the start of July, when it had 955 million users, through September 14. And the previous quarter was way down from the 102 million who joined during the first three months of 2012. In an interview CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked how with a billion users, the company wasn't "killing it" by making money. "It depends on your definition of 'killing it.' I mean, we are making billions of dollars," Zuckerberg fired back. In its last earnings report, Facebook said revenue increased by 32 percent to $1.18 billion in the second quarter. But that marked the slowest pace of quarterly revenue growth since the first quarter of 2011 - the earliest data available. Founded by Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm in 2004, Facebook took three years to reach 50 million users. By 2010, that hit 500 million. But with Google Inc launching its own social network and other services from Twitter to YouTube vying for Web surfers' time, the social network is keen to keep rolling out new products to keep its members engaged. "The key, of course, is monetization of those users," Hudson Square analyst Dan Ernst said. Facebook, stung by criticism over the efficacy of its ads, concerns about its mobile business and questions over growth, turned on the charm in the past month. Zuckerberg went on the offensive to soothe investors, making his first public appearance since the May IPO on September 11, confidently talking up the company's mobile prospects and hinting at new initiatives in search and e-commerce. It appeared to work, stemming the share price's slide below $18. The stock now trades above $21 - still well below its IPO price of $38. Zuckerberg said his company's new mobile ads were delivering better results for advertisers than its traditional ads on personal computers. In addition, this week, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and board member Marc Andreessen have appeared on the CNBC business channel and panels at a high-profile advertising conference in New York. The company said on its website it now has 600 million mobile users, up from 543 million at the end of June. "There's 5 billion people in the world who have phones, so we should be able to serve many more people and grow the user base there," Zuckerberg said. As for his own phone habits, he said he owns several devices, and called an iPhone 5 he received personally from Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook "a wonderful device." Facebook's share price and persistent, sceptical scrutiny of the company have taken a toll on its employees, many of whom had counted on a big post-IPO payday. Zuckerberg acknowledged that morale at the company could be better but said its 4,000 employees remained focused on building and improving Facebook's products. "We are obviously in a tough cycle now," he said. "That doesn't help morale." Facebook has rolled out a spate of initiatives to spur more growth, including a new advertising platform and measurement methods to show marketers they are getting bang for their buck. The company also said on Thursday it has seen 1.13 trillion "likes," or endorsements by users, since it launched the feature in February 2009. Many advertising campaigns that companies conduct on Facebook are designed to garner "likes." |