India overtakes US as Facebook's number 1 user

India has overtaken the US to become Facebook's largest country audience with 241 million active users, compared to 240 million in the US. The change in the ranking follows the Facebook announcement that it has more than two billion monthly users around the world, a report in The Next Web on Thursday said.

The portal was quoting figures that the social media giant released to advertisers. The figures indicate that the number of active users in India has been growing more than twice as fast as in the US. The report added that the number of active users in India has increased by 27 percent in the past six months alone, compared to the growth of 12 percent in the US over the same period.

Surprisingly, despite being the platform's largest country audience, social media penetration in India remained low, with just 19 percent of its total population using Facebook in June. The figures also lay bare Facebook's gender imbalance in India as men still represent three quarters of the active Facebook profiles.

In contrast, in the US, 54 percent of the platform's active users are women.

More than half of India's Facebook users are below the age of 25.

Earlier this year, when Facebook announced its earnings for the fourth quarter and full year 2016, it showed a steady growth in its revenue and user base. Facebook reported $8.8 billion in revenue, $3.56 billion in profit and said more than 1.23 billion people were using the social network every day and 1.15 billion people log in from mobile devices each day. Facebook earlier announced it now has more than two billion monthly users around the world.

(With inputs from IANS)

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