Facebook is now the most popular social network in India, having overtaken Orkut for the first time ever. The latest comScore figures show that Facebook has grown by 179% in the past year, and boasted 20.9 million visitors in July. Orkut, Google’s own social network, has until now held the top spot in the country, however only saw its users increase by 16% since July 2009.
India is now the seventh largest social networking market in the world, with almost 85% of the Indian internet population now accessing social networks.
However Twitter saw the highest growth rate of any social network in India, as it continues to establish a strong presence in all global regions.
In an interview earlier in the year, Gillian Muessig of SEOmoz said that “the Indian search market is exactly like the US in 1999 – a wide open playing field”. However, if it continues to develop at its current rate, that will not be the case for much longer. The opportunities to enter this market and establish a presence are huge – but organisations need to act now to ensure they are not left behind.
