Why Facebook should thank India and Brazil

New Delhi, May 7: An expanding user count in India and Brazil helped the world's largest social networking site Facebook to increase its monthly active users (MAUs) to a whopping 1.11 billion in the first quarter of 2013.

The ubiquitous social networking platform's MAUs rose by 23 per cent in January-March quarter of 2013 compared to the year-ago period.

MAUs are a measure of the size of its global active user community.

"As of March 31, 2013, we had 1.11 billion MAUs, an increase of 23 per cent from March 31, 2012. Users in Brazil and India represented key sources of growth in the first quarter of 2013 relative to the prior year," Facebook said in a filing to the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

The US-based firm defines MAUs as a registered Facebook user who logged in and visited Facebook through the website or a mobile device or took an action to share content or activity with his/her Facebook friends or connections via a third-party website that is integrated with Facebook, in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement.

"We had 73 million MAUs in Brazil as of March 31, 2013, an increase of 62 per cent compared to the same period in 2012 ; and we had 78 million MAUs in India as of March 31, 2013, an increase of 50 per cent compared to the same period in 2012," the filing added.

The company said that users accessing the site on their mobiles or handheld devices are increasing internationally.

Globally, mobile MAUs rose by 54 per cent to 751 million as of March 2013 from 488 million year-ago period, especially in India, Brazil and the US, it said.

"In all regions, an increasing number of our MAUs are accessing Facebook through mobile devices with users in India, Brazil, and the US representing key sources of mobile growth over the first quarter of 2013 as compared to fourth quarter of 2012," the social networking site noted in the filing.

Mobile MAUs is a user who accessed Facebook via a mobile app or via mobile-optimised versions of the website such as m.facebook.com, whether on a mobile phone or tablet such as the iPad, during the period of measurement.

About 189 million mobile MAUs accessed Facebook solely through mobile apps or the mobile website during the month ended March 31, 2013, a jump of 20 per cent from 157 million during the month ended December 31, 2012.

The remaining 562 million mobile MAUs accessed Facebook from both personal computers and mobile devices during that month.

Worldwide daily active users (DAUs) rose by 26 per cent to 665 million on average during March 2013 from 526 million during March, 2012.

"We experienced growth in DAUs across major markets, including Brazil, India and the US," it said.

PTI