Driven by people’s need to stay connected and share information on social networks, Facebook’s user base in India has grown to 112 million. Interestingly, of these, about 90 per cent of the users access the social networking site through mobile device.
“We have over 112 million monthly active users, who share and connect on Facebook, of these 99 million use Facebook on mobile devices. So for us, digital and mobile are pretty synonymous… So, mobile is key part of our strategy, and is completely driven by how people are consuming content,” Facebook India Managing Director Kirthiga Reddy told The Hindu.
Facebook had about 100 million users in April, growing to 112 million at the end of September.
On a daily basis, 52 million users from India access the Facebook site, with about 45 million doing it through their mobile phones.
The U.S.-based company has also conducted a study, titled ‘Coming of Age on Screens’, which aims to understand people’s attitudes and behaviour both online and offline.
The study found that 77 per cent of the users in the 13-24 age group agreed that they can’t leave their house without their mobile, while 63 per cent agreed that they would prefer to give up their TV for their mobile phone.
“Another interesting finding is that social media is the first place this group would turn to share a photo of themselves (41 per cent), a funny video or joke (37 per cent), an interesting news article (32 per cent) and a random observation (24 per cent) — ranking ahead of face-to-face, text, email and other means of communications,” Ms. Reddy said.
About 77 per cent of the respondents said they like to be connected to the Internet wherever they are, she said, adding over half (62 per cent) agreed they would feel lost if they couldn’t access social media. The study was the first in an ongoing series from Facebook, she said, adding that the practice was aimed at helping marketers better understand people.
