opera

From a Harvard geek’s dorm room to a multi-billion dollar global social network within a few years, Facebook has seen it all. It was only a matter of time before Indian expats started preferring it to Orkut (yes, I remember those dark days vividly) and introduced it to us natives and slowly, the bandwagon gained popularity, over-powering every one of the cheap imitations which sprung up. By the end of April 2011, India had 24.9 million Facebook users , now 5th overall in the world, posting a 160% growth since last year. Throw in our love for endlessly chatting with relatives and “being in touch” with everyone, we now boast of 840 million mobile subscribers in May 2011, and almost 59 per cent of all users access the internet using mobile web, estimates MobiThinking . This paves the way for a deadly combination of people who like to be on Facebook and are enabled to do so by their mobiles, which further translates to Advertising revenue for the company. Advertisers know what kind of target audience they are getting, and are normally rubbing their hands with glee when they discover the Ad rates! Smartphone analytics firm Smartmobi says Indian users access Google Search and Facebook the most. To quote; “Facebook on mobile has seen an 11 per cent increase in traffic over the six-month period. The reason for Facebook’s success could be the growing need to network and ease of sharing information.” Facebook have also collaborated with Snaptu to launch Facebook for Feature Phones. Telecom operators such as Reliance, Aircel, Airtel and Idea are now offering the Facebook mobile application for up to 90 days without data charges, a clever ploy to ensure customers keep coming back for more, while signing up to other features in the time being. Facebook for Feature Phones app aims to provide non-smartphone users similar experience to that of smartphone users, with features like News Feed and Inbox messages and letting users upload photos and find friends from their phone contacts. Apple, the company which has more free cash than the country in which it is incorporated, sees Facebook for iPhone being among the most downloaded apps on Apple’s smartphone since 2009, with 84 million active users, or half of all iPhone and iPod touches in use. This is a startling stat, with 1 in 2 Apple-product users logging on. They can but expect similar figures for India, as Smartphone penetration increases. The social media site however makes no purchasing revenue directly from its mobile presence, but through shares from apps hosted on it from developers. MobiThinking data suggests that by 2015, more than 400 million people in India will purchase digital goods via mobile devices, and what better place to target than 25 million young, tech-savvy Indians? If this growth accessibility rate continues, Indian Facebook users should double to over 50 million users by 2012 and with the tiny matter of us having 100 million Internet users (including mobile net), India is the gift that keeps on giving!