Facebook's annual report shows big spike in mobile usage

Facebook has made no bones about the fact that it’s looking to grow both internationally and on mobile devices. And for the first time, there are numbers to go with Facebook’s ambitions. Even while the figures revolve mostly around Facebook’s performance in European countries, they show that Facebook’s mobile plans are pretty much on track.

TechCrunch’s John Constine managed to get hold of Facebook’s eMagazine called The Annual, which was sent to some of the social networking website’s partners. Rich in illustrations and image-heavy, the magazine divulges some important details about the penetration of Facebook on mobiles in European countries, especially in the UK.

Sweden leads the race

For example, the report shows that Germany, a key international market for Facebook, now serves 25 million users and 18 million mobile users. As of June 2013, the publication reports that there were 33 million monthly active users in the UK out of which 26 million were active users on mobile. On a daily basis, 20 million users would access Facebook on their handsets.

Sweden has been running away with the mobile race for Facebook, with 81.6 percent of users who have shifted to mobile, with the US coming a close second with 79.3 percent users having shifted to mobile. This would surely have come as a surprise to anyone who was expecting Facebook’s home country – the US – to be leading this race. Comparatively, 73.5 percent of users worldwide have shifted to mobile right now.

Facebook will be looking to increase this number substantially in the coming years, globally. Mark Zuckerberg has minced no words in admitting that mobile is where the future lies for it. Zuckerberg has even joined a venture known as Internet.org, which consists of tech leaders of the world, including Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Opera, MediaTek and Samsung. The aim of the foundation is to bring Internet connectivity to parts of the world that are not connected yet, with a key focus on mobile connectivity.

Even while this report does not contain information about Asian countries, India is definitely on Facebook’s radar. Zuckerberg in his interview had said that India is a big opportunity in the Internet.org initiative. The group wants to work with mobile operators providing connectivity to phones like Nokia and Samsung – partners in the initiative.

In India, Zuckerberg said, only a 100 million people or maybe more have broadband Internet connection. Getting more users online, despite the language barrier, is still going to be a challenging task for the group. “With 82 million monthly active Facebook users in India and a comparatively small Internet subscriber base, we have a long road ahead,” he had said. “But it’s not like we are going to do it all by ourselves, we have to work with all these companies in order to make this work.”