Facebook rules the social networking world

The Middle East and Africa experienced the biggest rise in the use of online social networking sites over the past year while the U.S. experienced the lowest, according to new data released by comScore.

by Helen Leggatt

The online metrics company found that, over the last year, the number of new social networking site users across the globe, has risen 25% from 464.4 million to 580.5 million.

The regions with the highest rise in social networking users were found to be The Middle East and Africa, with a rise of 66%, followed by Europe (35%) and Latin America (33%).

However, in the U.S. which spawned social networking giants, growth has begun to level off, reaching only 9% in the last year.

"While the social networking trend first took off in North America, it is beginning to reach a point of maturity in the region," said Jack Flanagan, comScore's executive vice president, in a recent statement.

"However, the phenomenon is still growing rapidly in other regions around the world -- especially as the established American brands turn their focus to developing markets."

Facebook, now the largest social network in the world, has been the key driver of global growth in social networking. The majority of regions seeing Facebook user figures more than quadruple. In Europe growth was an enormous 303%, but Latin American growth was over 1000% (table). The number of North American users rose 38%, found the study.