Facebook most popular social network in 126 countries

June 11, 2012 - 21:36 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook, with more than 901 million active users, is the most popular social network in 126 countries, according to the latest "World Map of Social Networks," which charts popular social networks by country, PC Magazine reports.

Vincenzo Cosenza creates the world map twice a year – in June and December – based on traffic data from Alexa and Google Trends for Websites. According to the updated map, Facebook is dominant in 126 out of 137 countries analyzed; a list that now includes Uganda.

Europe is the largest continent on Facebook, with 232 million users, followed by North America with 222 million users, and Asia with 219 million users. Don't count out other social-networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Europe's Badoo, though.

"If we take a look over Facebook's shoulders we can see the battle for the second position between Twitter and LinkedIn or, especially in Europe, between Badoo and Twitter," Cosenza wrote.

Meanwhile, the social-networking giant is not dominant in Russia, China, Iran, Vietnam, and Latvia, the map shows. Facebook faces competition in several of those countries from local alternatives, such as V Kontakte and Odnoklassniki in Russia, Zing in Vietnam, and Draugiem in Latvia.

In China, where Facebook is banned in most areas, QZone is the most popular social network, with a whopping 560 million users, followed by Tencent Weibo with 337 million, and Sina Weibo with 334 million. In Iran, state censorship also makes it difficult for users to access Facebook.

Looking back at the map from one year ago, Facebook held the dominant position in 119 out of 134 countries analyzed.

It should be noted that the map does not include statistics for Google+ as this data is, ironically, is not displayed by Google Trends for Websites, Cosenza said. Back in January, however, Google CEO Larry Page said Google+ had 90 million users. By April, Page said that about 170 million people had "upgraded" to the social network without really explaining what that meant.