Facebook now as big as the entire Internet was in 2004
At the recent F8 conference Facebook revealed that they now have 800 million active users. Europe, with Russia included, has a population of 727 million. We now have a social network that is so large that it could fill up a major world region with people and still have some to spare (this “spare” being twice the size of Canada’s entire population).
Another cool comparison is that Facebook now has as many users as the entire Internet did back in 2004, the year Facebook was founded.
For fun, here are some other size comparisons you can make.
The size of Facebook’s active user base is…
- 38% of the entire current Internet population
- 87% of the Internet population of Asia
- 168% of the Internet population of Europe
- 294% of the Internet population of North America
- 370% of the Internet population of Latin America
- 674% of the Internet population of Africa
- 1,167% of the Internet population of the Middle East
- 3,757% of the Internet population of Oceania / Australia
And comparing it with the entire population of a few selected countries, we get this:
As a companion to the visual above, here you have the actual size relationships:
Facebook’s active user base is…
- 2.5x the population of the United States
- 3.9x the population of Brazil
- 5.8x the population of Russia
- 6.3x the population of Japan
- 9.7x the population of Germany
- 12.4x the population of France
- 13x the population of the United Kingdom
- 13.8x the population of Italy
- 19.7x the population of Spain
- 23.5x the population of Canada
- 36.6x the population of Australia
- 76.7x the population of Belgium
- 88x the population of Sweden
- 144.6x the population of Denmark
- 185.7x the population of Ireland
- Only India and China have populations larger than Facebook.
Note that the second chart compares entire populations, not just Internet populations (Internet users).
These numbers are pretty mind-boggling. Where will it all end? There’s still plenty of room left for Facebook to grow, but how massive can it get before it grinds to a halt?
Data sources: Population data from GeoHive. Internet user numbers from Internet World Stats.
But wait, there’s more! If you liked this post, check out this chart showing Facebook’s growth through the years, put into perspective by country populations, Internet stats, etc.: Facebook’s ginormous size put into context
Perceptions matter, and the perception of Nokia in the news, on the web, and in the minds of many, is that things aren’t going that well. Even in the Pingdom office, we hear “Nokia is doomed,” but do the numbers support this belief?
aaaa
October 5th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
like
Ayesh
October 5th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
YES! Assuming each person only use one facebook profile, in Asia, there are millions of intelligent people who really value the time.
Sam
October 5th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Since seeing his TED talk, I always read statistics in Hans Roslings voice.
@Techbrouhaha
October 5th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
But how many people have multiple accounts on Facebook?
Tom Foremski
October 5th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Deceptive headline. The number of Facebook users is now equal to all Internet users in 2004.
Ryan C
October 7th, 2011 at 12:33 am
It kind of begs the question where is all this Facebook data being stored and how safe is it all, I mean that’s a lot of info on a lot of people makes you think, erm well it does me how about you guys?…..
Dan
October 7th, 2011 at 1:51 am
Something seems very wrong with these numbers. They claim Denmark has 5.5m facebook users, which is a lilttle too impressive for a country of 5.56m people.
ED
October 8th, 2011 at 8:20 pm
Does Facebook’s claim of “active users” match the definition of Groupon’s version of an ‘active user’ where Groupon’s valuation dropped from $25 Billion to $3 Billion in 3 hours? If so, you are looking at
FaceFraud!
Pingdom
October 10th, 2011 at 2:45 am
@Dan: Who is claiming Denmark has 5.5 million Facebook users? Not this post. It’s comparing Facebook user numbers with country populations.
Pingdom
October 10th, 2011 at 2:47 am
@ED: Facebook’s definition of an active user is a user who has logged in at least once during the last 30 days.
zrzzz
October 15th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Remember when new technology got people excited? Now we get worked up over a glorified blog where people post their baby pictures and ruin future employment prospects. Human innovation is dead.
Denise
October 23rd, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Thanks for the article. Agree with another user that the numbers might be inflated because they don’t show numbers of users with two or more Facebook accounts. Would also love to see side-by-side comparisons of radio, TV and the Internet. Glad to see the continued Internet growth, but I still think TV is at the top spot for viewer usage, especially on the weekends when I notice email, website, etc. traffic drop off. The Internet is a “short” attention tool. People watch TV shows and listen to the “same” radio stations for hours. There is a difference in the three, and I think the business leaders who create strategies to work those differences, come out on top.
Denise
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