Facebook hits 261 million profiles and other stats

First is the big number; there are just shy of 262 million profiles on Facebook. Ranked against population in the countries Facebook states it has a presence in, that is 4.5%. Iceland is top of the population-to-profiles ratio at 48.4%, Norway 2nd at 41.2% and Canada 3rd with 37.1%. The UK is in 7th place with 32.6% and the USA is 12th at 25.9%. Obviously profiles do not automatically match to people (since some people have more than one), but it gives a good indication of uptake. So, assuming no one has more than one profile, that's 1 in 2 people in Iceland, and 3 people and one leg (probably a bad photo!) out of 10 in the UK on Facebook.

The USA is top in pure numeracy of profiles with 79.5 million users. The UK comes second with just over 20 million, and third, which may surprise some people, is Turkey with 13 million profiles (17.5% of Turkey's population). The future powerhouses of the world, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations, are not big fans of Facebook, with India having less than 4 million users and Brazil having 0.7% population to profiles. The reasons for this are twofold, the obvious being the relatively small number of Internet enabled within these countries when factored against their population, the second being that in these markets, Facebook plays second fiddle to localised social networks (e.g. QQ in China). Similarly, the success of Mixi in Japan means that there are only around 640,000 Facebook profiles country-wide.

English and Spanish speaking countries seem to be the core Facebook profile base – a quick tally shows over 120 million profiles from countries that have English as a primary language and over 35 million from Spanish speaking countries.

There are too many numbers to run through all of the stats, but hopefully the above provides a little insight. The top 10 listings are below:

Top ten countries by number of Facebook profiles

Position	Country	Profiles (millions)	Profiles to Population
1	United States of America	79.55	25.9%
2	United Kingdom	20.07	32.6%
3	Turkey	13.12	17.5%
4	Canada	12.51	37.1%
5	France	11.46	17.6%
6	Italy	10.4	17.3%
7	Indonesia	7.87	3.4%
8	Australia	6.47	29.6%
9	Spain	6.46	13.8%
10	Colombia	6.29	25.9%

Top ten countries by percentage of population with Facebook profiles

Position	Country	Profiles (millions)	Profiles to Population
1	Iceland	0.15	48.4%
2	Norway	1.99	41.2%
3	Canada	12.51	37.1%
4	Denmark	2.02	36.7%
5	Cyprus	0.29	36.3%
6	Singapore	1.58	32.7%
7	United Kingdom	20.07	32.6%
8	Hong Kong	2.27	32.4%
9	Chile	5.13	30.2%
10	Australia	6.47	29.6%

This blog post was written by Richard Conyard

If you liked this post you may also like:

• Social Engagement, creating the buzz
• Digital consultancy and digital strategy
• The evolution from website design onto social engagement and digital strategy

If you would like to discuss this post why not follow us on twitter?