India spurs Facebook growth; 83 mn fake users worldwide

Washington, Aug 3 (IANS) Spurred by growth in Brazil, India, and Indonesia, Facebook increased its user count to 955 million, but the popular social network said over 83 million of them were fake accounts it wants to disable.

Facebook said it had 59 million monthly active users in India as of June 30, 2012, an increase of 84 percent compared to the same period in 2011.

In an updated regulatory filing released Wednesday, Facebook said users in Brazil, India, and Indonesia represented key sources of growth in the second quarter of 2012 leading to an increase of 29 percent in its monthly active users over 2011. The company said that 8.7 percent of its 955 million monthly active users worldwide are actually duplicate or false accounts, but did not say how many of them were in India.

Duplicate accounts make up 4.8 percent (45.8 million) of Facebook's total active member tally. Misclassified non-human personal accounts that have been made for companies, groups or pets make up another 2.4 percent (22.9 million). These accounts can be converted into approved pages without losing information.

The third group is the smallest-just 1.5 percent of all active accounts-but most troublesome. There are 14.3 million undesirable accounts that Facebook believes have been created specifically for purposes that violate the company's terms, like spamming.

"We believe the percentage of accounts that are duplicate or false is meaningfully lower in developed markets such as the United States or Australia and higher in developing markets such as Indonesia and Turkey," the company said in the filing.

Worldwide daily active users too increased 32 percent to 552 million from 417 million with growth across major markets including Brazil, the United States, and India.

Mobile active users who accessed Facebook via a mobile app or via mobile-optimised versions of Facebook website increased by 67 percent from 325 million to 543 million with users in the United States, India, and Brazil representing key sources of growth.

Facebook said it faced significant competition in almost every aspect of its business, including from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter with Orkut owned by Google providing strong competition in Brazil and India.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)