Facebook has released new usage figures showing that India has overtaken the United States as the country with the highest number of Facebook users.
The new figures show that total Facebook users in India total 241 million, while U. S. users trail behind at 240 million.
This follows the recent announcement that the social media platform has reached a new milestone, marking 2 billion active users each month. While the company has had impressive growth in both countries this year, the growth rate in India has been more than double the rate in the U. S. for the first half of 2017.
The increase in Indian users in 2017, with over 50 million new active users, led to the country taking the number one spot from the United States, which added 26 million active users in the same period.
Most Facebook users in India are young, with 53% of users under the age of 25, and 83% under 35. The majority of users are male. Men represent 76% of users in India, in contrast to the U. S., where active users of Facebook identifying as female represent 54% of total users.
Overall, however, India looks to remain in the top position as social media penetration in the country continues to grow. Currently, Facebook has 73% penetration in the United States, where only 19% of India’s total population are regular monthly users of the platform. As India continues to move toward the global average of 42%, active user numbers are expected to continue to increase.
84% of users in India access Facebook through a mobile device. As the number of smartphones in the country is set to increase by more than 200 million over the next five years, it is reasonable to expect the number of Facebook users to grow accordingly.
Interestingly, while the United States and India topped the list of countries with the total number of active users, the list of cities with the most users was topped by Bangkok, with 35 million users. The second-place city was Jakarta, with 26 million active monthly users.
India finally appears on the list of cities with the most users at number 6, with New Delhi showing 15 million active monthly users. Cities in the United States do not appear in the top ten at all.
