Compete’s latest statistics show that Facebook had a slow summer, growing by only 2 million users between June and the end of September. While summer traffic growth was practically non existent, last month the company posted just under 2 percent growth. This is slightly more negative data than we posted last week which showed Facebook dominating MySpace domestically, growing over 200 percent in the past 12 months.
While Compete also shows Facebook tripling its traffic over the past year, the past few months have been relatively slow. Given that the total number of internet users in the U.S. is approximately 227 million (according to internet world stats), Facebook already has close to 55 percent saturation. Facebook continues to see the standard “S curve” growth in each market it enters and it appears that the company has reached the top of its curve in the U.S.
So what does this mean for the company? Right now I would still wait another month to see if growth has definitely slowed, but given that traffic has been relatively consistent for the past four months, U.S. saturation may actually be leveling off. Facebook continues to grow abroad which should push it closer to 400 million users, however the 1 billion user target that Twitter and Facebook both have, may be a much more distant target.
Also, considering that Compete shows Google reaching 147 million users in the U.S., Facebook probably doesn’t have much room left for domestic growth. This slowing of growth may actually be the one good sign for MySpace which has been getting creamed by Facebook over the past year. Unfortunately for MySpace, Compete shows the company traffic dropping by 10 percent just in the past month.
We’ll have to wait and see if all MySpace users make the shift to Facebook and the much discussed class separation between the social networks.
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Good post. I’m a stats junkie so it was good to see some hard numbers.
I can see FB’s numbers going well over 500 Mil once it hits critical mass overseas.
It will be interesting to see how Myspace responds now that FB’s growth has seemed to reach a peak here in North America
Comment by Success — October 13, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
I am also a stats junkie and I agree that this is a great post. Makes me think that we could develop a Facebook Penetration Index for the main Internet Countries. How many of you would be interested in viewing these stats?
Comment by iwstats — October 14, 2009 @ 7:39 am
Still having trouble with my blackberry when acessing fb and on my laptop. So annoying. My service provider couldn't even figure it out after 40 minutes. When is this gonna b resolved already?
Comment by kmack — October 16, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
I think that part of the reason the growth is slowing down, is because the actual site is slowing down. Seriously, what used to be able to be done in seconds now takes minutes on facebook. That’s their biggest negative right now.
Comment by Grady — October 21, 2009 @ 10:17 am