Nielsen: Facebook lost 10 million users in the U.S. in 2012

Facebook UK visitor statistics

On May 1, 2013, according to data recently released by the well-known market research organization Nielsen, Facebook has lost 10 million users in the United States in the past year, and its monthly visits in the United Kingdom have not seen any growth.

The survey shows that the number of unique visitors to Facebook's website through devices including smartphones, tablets and traditional PCs peaked in August last year, reaching 158 million, but now this figure has dropped from 153 million in March 2012 to 142 million in March this year.

In its most recent earnings report, Facebook revealed that it now has more than 1.11 billion monthly active users, up 23% year-on-year; the number of monthly active users on mobile devices is 751 million, up 54% year-on-year. However, the growth in these monthly active users mainly comes from underdeveloped regions, and these regions usually bring lower advertising revenue to the company.

Currently, Facebook, which has been established for 9 years, is facing challenges from many competitors, including the cross-platform communication application WhatsApp. In response, Facebook has begun to try to regain its advantage by redesigning its mobile application and trying its best to cater to the login method that users are more accustomed to, but the growth of mobile users does not seem to be enough to make up for the rapid decline in Facebook PC users.

According to Nielsen data, the number of unique visitors to Facebook in the UK peaked at 28 million on October 28 last year, but this figure has fallen back to 26 million in March this year. In addition, the number of Facebook users in the UK has now fallen back to the same level as last year, which means that the social network's rapid growth in the region is coming to an end.

It is reported that Nielsen mainly counts the number of browsers accessing the site by setting "tags" on Facebook's server with Facebook's consent, and this statistical data will then be cross-verified by user verification agencies in each country. Currently, Nielsen has selected 40,000 users in the UK for a sample survey based on geographical distribution, income and age. Although the agency can accurately count the number of browsers accessing Facebook through various devices, it cannot give precise data on the specific number of people using the Facebook application. However, Nielsen said that ordinary Facebook mobile users may only log in to the web version of Facebook once a month.

It is worth mentioning that the data released by Nielsen is quite consistent with the data given by other research institutions. On Sunday local time, the British "Guardian" quoted data from Socialbakers, a social analysis company specializing in analyzing social data, saying that Facebook's monthly user visits in the United States and Europe have both declined.

However, Jan Rezab, CEO of SocialBakers, later reminded in his blog that caution is needed when using SocialBakers' data as a reference, because SocialBakers only made a rough estimate of Facebook traffic and may not reflect the actual situation. However, now, Nielsen's survey data has reached a similar conclusion as SocialBakers.

Facebook declined to comment.

Future Opportunities

Facebook previously said that the number of users accessing Facebook through personal computer devices in developed countries is decreasing, but the traffic through mobile devices is growing rapidly. Last Christmas, the number of monthly visitors to Facebook through mobile devices reached 680 million, which has exceeded 50% of Facebook's total users. In addition, about 25% of advertising revenue currently comes from small-screen devices.

There is no doubt that for Facebook, mobile users have a relatively greater user value. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call to interpret the previous financial report: "Users who only visit Facebook's desktop products may only use Facebook 40% of the time on a given day, but users who visit Facebook on mobile devices have a 70% chance of using Facebook. For many people, this situation may be a bit unexpected, but such news is very beneficial to our development on mobile."

According to Facebook's first quarter financial report for the fiscal year 2013 ending March 31, Facebook's revenue in the first quarter was $1.458 billion, up 38% from $1.058 billion in the same period last year, and its net profit was $219 million, up 7% from $205 million in the same period last year. Among them, mobile advertising revenue accounted for 30% of the company's total advertising revenue, up 7 percentage points from 23% in the same period of 2012.