Facebook has more than 140 million active users since 17th December, 2008 with a growth rate of over 600,000 daily. It grew more than 130% from January, 2008 to this date making it the largest social networking website. In January, 2008 there were just over 50 million users.
(Source)
This amazing penetration in 2008 is seen in many countries including Nigeria. When I joined facebook in November, 2007 there were less than 40,000 Nigerians on the network. Today there are approximately 212,980 Nigerians as shown by the Facebook SocialAd utility, marking a 432% increase.
Despite the high growth rate, the percentage penetration in terms of the 140 million Nigerians is so insignificant (0.152%). This is no surprise since more than 90% of Nigerians do not have access to the internet; only about 10 million have access as at June, 2008.
A more significant figure of 2.13% is seen in terms of penetration based on the number of internet users.
Before May 2008, I rarely visit the site since I had a few contacts and there was nothing to get me engaged. But since that time (May, 2008), I started receiving more email alerts from Facebook – friend requests, wall posts, messages and so on. That made me to realize that there are now many Nigerians embracing the network.
In may 2008, the number of Nigerian users have reached 68,260 and two months later (July) 99,720 was recorded – a 46% increase.
By 30th December, 2008, Facebook Demographic Statistics show that 199,335 of facebook users are from Nigera, an average of 17% monthly increase.
With this growth rate we should expect almost half a million Facebook users by the middle of 2009. The number might skyrocket beyond what we expect as Mobile browsing becomes more popular in Nigeria which in turn mean more Internet users. Between January and September 2008 there is an incredible increase of 1690% page views from Nigeria. It’s not going to be a surprise that aside email and news reading, most of the traffic is from Facebook.
We should expect even more growth with the recent launch of Facebook Connect. Your favorite sites will be inviting you to connect or login with your Facebook account, and that leaves you with no option but to sign up with Facebook if you are yet to.
Just as the number of users’ increases, the number of daily unique visitors also increases which is obvious. In January 2008 about 12,000 unique visitors are recorded daily. More than 42,000 unique users return to Facebook daily before the end of 2008 as Google Trends show.
Facebook must have noticed the growth of its users in Nigeria when they added it to the SocialAd utility in February 2008. Currently Nigeria is one of the 95 countries on the list.
What effects are we going to expect as more Nigerians continue to join facebook: is it just going to be a place where we connect with friends and chit-chat, is it going to add value to our education, will it have any effect on our businesses, or is it going to change our politics?
I have seen groups like ‘Buhari Organization’ and ‘El-Rufai for Nigeria’ already been formed. Even though, the number of Facebook users compared with the number of eligible voters is insignificant I think it’s going have some effect on our political campaigns.
Cause for Good Governance in Nigeria (created using Facebook Cause Application which is used for recruiting people to join a cause) has 6,525 members. Let’s hope that this number increases and the objective of the Cause is achieved some day.
With credit cards such as Master Card and Visa being issued by Nigerian banks now, I expect to see adverts and business transactions on Facebook platform. I also expect to see Facebook applications being developed by Nigerians for business and other purposes, especially if Facebook Developers Garage similar to the one recently held in Uganda would take place in Nigeria.
These are the good stuffs we are looking forward to, but the bad ones are also lingering around. Nigerian scams have become a renowned issue globally and the culprits are now trying to explore within the domain of Facebook. On 7th November, 2008 the news was hit when Karina Wells, a Google Australian employee, received a Facebook message from a friend requesting for plane ticket money claiming he is stranded in Lagos.
Let’s keep watching as the Facebook journey continues in Nigeria.
Update:
Update: 573,780 Nigerians on Facebook
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January 4, 2009 at 2:20 am
Very interesting write-up. My office once set up a proxy server for d sole purpose of restricting facebook traffic.
instead of complying,folks looked for loopholes to get around it.
Facebook Chat is already competing wit Yahoo messenger.
I log into facebook once every 6hrs or so,it’s alarming!!!
January 5, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Yes, Facebook is becoming increasingly popular. In Nigeria, it seems it is mostly patronized (in my estimation) by young females (18 – 30) who delight in sharing their pictures with foreigners.
The number wanes when you cross the 30 Age Mark. Most people view it as a website of the more unserious nature and it’s little wonder that Companies are coming up with policy aimed at limiting its use.
In light of this, it would be very interesting to see FaceBook shedding its image as a frivolous website to a tool useful for politics and other issues of great importance.
January 6, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Wow! Faiz, this is a wonderful analysis. Though I have an account with Facebook, but hadly visit the site. But I now have the more reason why I should get back on track. Thanks for this awakening campaign.
January 8, 2009 at 8:00 am
Faiz, great observation about the stats about Nigerians on FaceBook, I am just curious to know if the stats took into account the Nigerians outside Nigeria who are on FaceBook. Personally I have about 500+ on FaceBook out of which about half of them are Nigerians but out of these only about 10% are still based in Nigeria. Contrary to the popular view of it being an “unserious website”, FaceBook has been used as a tool to connect with Nigerians across the globe and as a result of this I have personally been invovled in new projects with my fellow country men around the world which would have been, otherwise, impossible if we did not have a tool like FaceBook to keep us connected.
January 8, 2009 at 9:01 am
Thanks for the observation; I wanted to highlight that but it was an oversight. Facebook should be using IP address as the main factor to determine the number of users from a particular location, so the statistics can’t be so accurate since there are lot of Nigerians outside the country on Facebook (probably more than those within). That could be balanced since there are many non-Nigerians in Nigeria on Facebook as well.
January 9, 2009 at 11:10 am
[...] reports that as at when he joined Facebook in November 2007, “there were less than 40,000 Nigerians [...]
January 10, 2009 at 12:05 am
This is a good read. We can all take up time to create (and most importantly be progressing) groups and forums to promote social, religious and community-development causes.
I think the shift from unserious to serious minded social circle will evolve (if it hasnt done so) sooner than later.
My fear been that overzealous businesses would crash the enthusiasm and cause many ppl to patronise such sites (I’m on facebook, my space, goggle reader, msn spaces, kai the list is gettin exhaustive) and facebook in particular).
Welldone once more.
January 17, 2009 at 10:24 am
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February 5, 2009 at 6:07 am
interesting,faiz you are even deeper than i reckoned,ill be sure to check your page everyday.facebok is a good developement,its very interesting even addictive to a certain extent,but you know the average nigerian that has access to the internet most often resorts to “petty talk” and baseless “gossip”,your analysis reveals some very interesting statistics,its up to the wise one’s amongst them to take advantage of this interesting phenomenom we find ourselves networking on.
February 6, 2009 at 9:26 pm
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