Facebook Growing in the US and Around the World this Fall, Measurement Firms Show

Following a solid summer of growth, Facebook is continuing to gain users in the US and around the world in September and October, according to the latest data from most third party web measurement firms. Most showed the company gaining a few million users in the United States, and more abroad. Here's a look at the trends we're seeing from what Compete, comScore, Google Ad Planner and Quantcast are showing. We'll end by comparing their data to the Facebook data that we collect from the company's ad tools. Our previous post covered data from August and in some cases September -- be sure to check that post for context on some of the changes we discuss seeing now. Compete Facebook's growth has been on a steady climb in the US following a slow summer, gaining around 2.7 million new unique visitors in October after a similar gain in September. MySpace meanwhile continued to fall while Twitter also fell after a flat summer -- but the latter company is also seeing some new growth, according to most other measurements. ComScore Rising from 148.4 million monthly unique visitors, Facebook gained 2.71 million new users in the US. MySpace and Twitter, the company's two most direct rivals, both also brought in some growth. The numbers are more pronounced worldwide. Facebook gained 13.3 million new users to reach 633.5 million uniques. MySpace continued to fall by millions, but Twitter also registered international growth, gaining more than 3 million new users. Note that comScore typically shows the highest total numbers for Facebook out of any service, including data from Facebook itself. Google Ad Planner The search giant's Doubleclick property aggregates data from Google products and other sources to offer a high-quality alternative to web measurement companies. It's showing the same monthly unique visitor count as in past months -- 540 million -- but it appears to have updated its daily active user graph since the last time we looked. Having dipped down towards 200 million, it now appears to be reaching towards 300 million daily uniques. Quantcast The firm currently only has data available through September, and for that month it showed Facebook gaining around 2 million new users in the US, from 135 million to 137 million uniques. That still roughly tracks with the others. Meanwhile, like comScore and it is also showing more losses for MySpace and growth for Twitter -- the growth pattern around Twitter looks unusually, as you can see below, and we'll be tracking it in the future. Conclusion Facebook itself self-reported 551.7 million monthly active users at the beginning of November, via its advertising tool. The US in particular gained nearly 5 million new users in October to reach 143 million. The company hasn't officially confirmed that or any other number since it announced it had reached 500 million in late July, but most firms seem to confirm the US growth, and comScore and Google both seem to confirm international growth. On that last point, Facebook has consistently claimed that around half of its users are on the site every day, and if that is holding true, then the daily usage growth Google is showing points towards 600 million monthly active users. We'll be exploring the company's stats and much more in our new Inside Facebook Gold monthly report, coming in early December. Stay tuned.

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Facebook Growing in the US and Around the World this Fall, Measurement Firms Show

Eric Eldon

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Eric Eldon