Facebook sees big traffic drops in North America

Even as Facebook is growing worldwide, the number of people using the social network during May fell in North America and several European countries, a slow- down for the second month in a row, according to latest data released on Monday.

Facebook reached 687.1 million users worldwide in May, a growth of 11.8 million users in the month following 13.9 million over April, industry group Inside Facebook said, noting that the overall growth has been lower than normal for the second month straight.

According to Inside Facebook, in the past 12 months, Facebook grew by at least 20 million new users on a monthly basis.

Most prominently, the United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of the month, which is the first time Facebook lost users in the country.

Canada also fell significantly by 1.52 million, down to 16.6 million, and Britain, Norway as well as Russia also posted losses of more than 100,000 in the month.

The slowing growth may indicate that Facebook has reached the limits of expansion in the countries where it was successful earlier. Inside Facebook noted that by the time Facebook reaches around 50 percent of the total population in a given country, growth generally slows to a halt.

Source: Xinhua

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