Calamity struck South Africa in the Facebook regional race on Tuesday (September 18): Sweden came from way behind to push the southern-hemisphere upstarts from sixth to seventh place in the rankings of the biggest regional networks on Facebook.
On Wednesday, the South African network stood at 286 000 users — a nice leap from the 250 000 mark reached just 10 days earlier, but not enough to keep ahead of Sweden, which stood at 291 000 — up dramatically from below 210 000 10 days earlier.
The most dramatic growth, though, has come from Australia, which has left Norway in the dust, and the latter is likely to be overtaken by Sweden in the coming weeks. See the Facebook article on how the Aussies make up for cricket humiliation.
Africa had a second casualty: the Egypt network slipped two places, overhauled by both India and France. And it needs to look out for both Lebanon and Hong Kong.
The rankings that follow reflect regional networks as on September 19 2007. They do not include users in these countries who choose networks other than their countries (that is, universities, employers) as primary networks:
Total Facebook users: 41-million
(Numbers in brackets show network members on September 10)
1. United States: 10-million plus
2. Canada: Six million plus
3. United Kingdom: Five million plus
4. Australia: 497 000 (393 000)
5. Norway: 349 000 (337 000)
6. South Africa: 286 000 (256 000)
7. Sweden: 291 000 (210 000)
8. India: 123 000 (101 000)
9. France: 122 000 (93 000)
10. Egypt: 117 000 (104 000)
11. Hong Kong: 100 000 (77 000)
12. Lebanon: 95 000 (87 000)
Facebook’s media fact sheet still puts Mexico in 10th place, but it continues to rank far lower in terms of purely regional networks.
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