State of the competition to Facebook
Written 2010-11-08 (The links will point to up-to-date graphs) by [Hedda]
Well, as I kind of need this study, I can just as well share it with the rest of the world. I think I've included everything except countries like China and Iran that have other issues than competition. Japan, UK and France don't have any big competitor to Facebook, and basically all small countries haven't either. Orkut might be big on some of these small markets, but I don't find it very interesting and it will change.
(In the graphs with 2 lines, Facebook is red)
In Russia it's
www.Vkontakte.ru
They are big at first glance:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=vkontakte.ru%2Cfacebook.com&geo=RU&date=all&sort=1
Vkontakte has a big lead, but FB has increased with 200% the last year. Also note how much closer Facebook is in Moscow! When that has tipped over, it will go fast in the restof the country too.
Facebook is also closer on Vkontakte's other main markets:
Ukraine:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=vkontakte.ru%2Cfacebook.com&geo=UA&date=all&sort=1
Vkontakte in Kazakstan:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=vkontakte.ru%2Cfacebook.com&geo=KZ&date=all&sort=1
Vkontakte in Belarus:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=vkontakte.ru%2Cfacebook.com&geo=BY&date=all&sort=1
Vkontakte in Latvia, Vkontakte has always been after:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=vkontakte.ru%2Cfacebook.com&geo=LV&date=all&sort=1
In the Netherlands, it's
www.hyves.nl that is the biggest social network at the moment, but it's changing:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=hyves.nl%2Cfacebook.com&geo=NL&date=all&sort=1
(Almost no one is using Hyves in Belgium, by the way. Strange.)
In the USA it was MySpace that was the biggest rival, but they got overrun 2 years ago and it is hardly used anymore:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=myspace.com,facebook.com&geo=US&date=all&sort=1
In India
www.Orkut.com was biggest until this spring:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=orkut.com,facebook.com&geo=IN&date=all&sort=1
But now FB is twice as big.
In Brazil, Orkut has almost total dominance, but doesn't grow anymore and FB is growing at a rate of +200% per year.
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=orkut.com%2Cfacebook.com&geo=BR&date=all&sort=1
Note that Facebook is only half as small in the bigger towns, so it's in the smaller towns that are a little after in the FB adoption. Where the trend is going is clear though.
In Germany there was Studivz.net but it got totally crushed by Facebook a year ago:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=studivz.net%2Cfacebook.com&geo=DE&date=all&sort=0
In Spain there is
www.tuenti.com but Facebook has slowly become twice as big the last year, but Tuenti seems to keep its userbase even if it isn't growing anymore.
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tuenti.com,facebook.com&geo=ES&date=all&sort=0
Tuenti has just been bought by Teleónica:
http://blogs.alianzo.com/socialnetworks/2010/08/04/so-why-did-telefonica-buy-tuenti/
I give it a year. It seems to have some unique mobile features, but soon everything you carry in your pocket can Facebook and Facebook is developing fast. Tuenti on the other hand will have internal problems and there is no way in hell they will be able to expand to other Spanish speaking countries where Facebook already is the dominant player. Tuenti is also "restricted" to a specific age-group, which makes it very vulnerable.
China:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=facebook.com&geo=CN&date=all&sort=0
Taiwan:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=facebook.com&geo=TW&date=all&sort=0
Note that little Taiwan with 23 000 000 inhabitants has 20 times as many Facebook users than Totalitarian "Communist" China (which has 50 times more people, so the penetration is 1000 times lower) that started to fight Facebook in June 2009. In June 2009 China had 400 000 FB-users while Taiwan about the same amount (no surprise as Taiwan is more developed). So the competition in China is of course censorship, which is harder to crush for Facebook it seems.
Hongkong isn't included in China:
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=facebook.com&geo=HK&date=all&sort=0
Any important country or competitor I've missed? Write a comment!
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