“Like” If You Use Facebook on Your Mobile Phone

In August of this year, Facebook revealed that 78% of their U.S. users access Facebook from their mobile phone (TechCrunch). That may come as no surprise since 91% of the U.S. adult population now own a cell phone, and 56% of them have a smartphone according to the Pew Research Center.

The TechCrunch article announced that Facebook plans to start sharing its daily mobile user count by country. In a statement Facebook said:  “…understanding who comes back at least once a month is only part of the picture. Instead, businesses should focus on people who come back online every single day.”

Facebook’s hope is that this will help advertisers know which international markets they should focus their efforts on. Essentially they want to show the big numbers to reel in advertising dollars.

Facebook may need to clarify some of its data though. Many mobile phone apps are “on” once you download them, especially if you have Live Tiles, like the Windows Phone. Does active really mean "active" or just "logged in"? Are you counted even though you really haven’t check anything on your phone that day?  

The article is not clear whether Mobile Daily Active Users (DAUs) are unique users. For example, most visit Facebook each day from both a desktop and a mobile device. So are you counted in the total daily active users and mobile phone users? In addition, the article shows the Mobile DAUs as a total, not broken down by regions, like the Daily Active Users chart is.

It’s interesting that they don’t share the graphs in the same way. This allows it to be ambiguous whether its mobile growth is predominantly coming from the U.S. or are other markets growing as well. Showing the total numbers is more appealing for now, until they are ready to show higher numbers for regions.

Regardless of whether Facebook has showcased their numbers correctly, they are on the right track with their mobile strategy. As more and more global users continue to upgrade their phones to smartphones, the more people will be using apps to access their accounts.

Research from eMarketer predicts that mobile phone usage will continue to grow and by 2017, 154.7 million Americans will be using Facebook on their mobile devices. Advertisers should get onboard because Facebook mobile isn’t going anywhere but up. Plus, Facebook’s massive reach and million mobile users per day mean advertisers have a large opportunity for which they have only begun to scratch the surface.  

 Resources:

Article: http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/facebook-mobile-user-count/

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Smartphone-Ownership-2013/Findings.aspx

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-User-Bases-Facebook-Twitter-Keep-Growing/1010135