NEW YORK (June 24, 2008)—Facebook continues to trail MySpace in the US, but the online social networking site has overtaken its main rival in worldwide unique users. With almost 20 foreign-language versions of the site, starting with French, German and Spanish, Facebook has seen continuous growth throughout Europe. Now, with the new Chinese-language version, it is beginning its trajectory in Asia.

Western Europe has played a major role in the growth of online social networks. eMarketer estimates that 60.5% of the UK population, or 36.8 million people, went online at least once per month in 2007. Of those, 30%—11 million people—visited social network sites at least once per month.

“The strong growth is an indicator of the level of interest consumers have in online social networks,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst specializing in social networks. Online social network ad spending in the UK and Western Europe is expected to reach £283 million in 2008, rising to £804 million in 2012.

“As in the US, the demographics of UK social network users have broadened, but the youth market remains the core audience,” Ms. Williamson added.

For more information, or to speak to Ms. Williamson, see Media Contacts below.

About eMarketer
eMarketer is "The First Place to Look" for research and analysis on digital marketing and media. eMarketer aggregates and analyzes research from over 3,000 sources, and brings it together in analyst reports, daily articles and the most comprehensive database of online marketing statistics in the world.

Media Contacts:
Kris Oser
Director of strategic communications, eMarketer
Tel. 212-763-6033
OR
Samson Adepoju
Communications coordinator, eMarketer
Tel. 212-763-6044  

Get more articles like this one delivered every day. Click here for the eMarketer Daily newsletter.