eMarketer: Facebook's user reach in Russia expands

eMarketer estimates that Facebook will reach 837 million users in 2012, making it the world's largest social networking site. However, this site is not the king everywhere. In places like Russia and China, it is still lagging behind and being beaten.

According to comScore, in October 2011, Facebook was the fourth most popular social networking site in Russia, reaching 20% ​​of the country's Internet audience, behind the three major local social networking sites VKontakte (VT), Odnoklassniki.ru and Mail.ru (My World).

In addition to reaching the leading position, the average user time spent on the two local social networking sites is more than 10 times that of Facebook.

eMarketer predicts that Facebook's market share in Russia will grow by 62% in 2012, while the total number of social networking site users will only grow by 11.1%. These data show that local social networks may not be able to maintain a lasting market advantage. The question now is not whether Facebook can conquer the Russian market, but when.