A while back I posted the Facebook usage statistics for Western Europe and i’ve recieved some feedback on that matter. Today I looked up the same statistics using the same method but came up with some interesting results. It seems that some countries are losing intrest in Facebook. 4 out of the top 5 countries in Facebook penetration in my previous article are now part of the top 5 countries with the biggest decline in users, amongst them all Scandinavian countries!
The top 5 with the biggest decline are:
- Norway (-10.97%)
- Sweden (-3.16%)
- United Kingdom (-2.28%)
- Denmark (-1.59%)
- Finland (-1.14%)
Malta (-0.67%), Ireland (-0.47%) and Switzerland (-0.34%) were the only other countries with a decline in users compared to june.
The reasons for these declines are beyond me, though several scenarios are possible. One is that there has been an actual decline in the facebook users in the beforementioned countries. Another possibility is that privacy settings are prohibiting a correct measurement or some users have not quit facebook but changed their country for either privacy reasons or due to migration. The list of reasons is most likely longer that what I’ve summed up here…
Out of the 29 countries for which i’ve collected data, 8 have a decline while all others have a (small) increase. I feel somewhat obligated to point out that the Scandinavian countries are all represented in the top 5, coincidence or is there more behind these statistics?
On a more possitive note, The top 5 of increases are following countries:
- Romania (19.48%)
- Latvia (10.97%)
- Hungary (10.88%)
- Estonia (5.03%)
- Lithuania (4.62%)
One remark though, when calculating statistics with smaller numbers the increase or decrease can be somewhat higher/lower than others because the data involved is way smaller than those in other calcluations. For example: going from 100 users to 150 in one month translates in an increase of 50% while only being ’50′ users whereas an increase of 1.000.000 to 1.001.000 is ‘only’ an increase of 1% while being 1.000 users.
Other parameters such as population, internet penetration and knowledge and many others come into play so I will certainly not be able to explain everything (or anything for that matter). I’m just being the messenger for the time being.
What are your thoughts on these statistics?
The data behind these statistics have been collected on june 10th and july 13th (2010) and have been found on facebook itself. If you would like to recieve the actual data, feel free to contact me!
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
Genial post and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you for your information.
It’s time to bring these babies back from obscurity!
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