16 million Nigerians visit Facebook every month on their mobiles
The rate at which the social media app ‘Facebook’ is been used is now alarming, you can imaging even a new-born baby knows fully well how the app is used .So many youngsters between the age grade of 9- 19 years, are so glued to the app that they do nothing except chatting ,accepting and requesting of new friends, uploading and downloading of pictures and tghe rest. Some other age grade has also embraced the facebook app which they disliked at some point in time, but since it has been a trend they have joined the fast moving train. Some persons between the ages of 50-60 years, have also asked their offsprings who have talked so much about the activities on facebook to create an account for them, In other to hook up with some colleagues and lost contacts.
Recently,california-based social networking giant, Facebook has announced that 16 million Nigerians visit Facebook every month with 100% of them doing so through their mobile phones.
A further breakdown of this figure shows 7.2 million people visit Facebook each day while 6.9 million of the daily active people access Facebook on mobile.
Head of Africa for Facebook, Nunu Ntshingila said, “We know the mobile platform people use the most in Nigeria is Facebook and up to 77% of Nigerians on Facebook use their mobile device to discover new products and services. Nigerians are sophisticated mobile users and this sophistication is increaseing fast – people are ahead of businesses, and we’re here to help businesses create mobile-first solutions to grow their business.”
The announcement of these figures coincided with Friends Day (4 February), or Facebook’s 12th birthday. Facebook hosted a dinner for women leaders in Nigeria where Mendelsohn and Ntshingila spoke about entrepreneurism and technology can drive economies and create jobs.
“For us, Friends Day in Nigeria was about hearing the stories of our community using Facebook our platform to grow and connect with others. We have made amazing progress over the past year. We’re only 1% done in Nigeria and inspired to do even more in this fast-moving, mobile first country,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President, EMEA, at Facebook.
During the past five years, the global Facebook community has more than doubled in size, and its community in Nigeria continues to grow.
Last year, Facebook announced that the number of people in Nigeria and Africa as a whole using Facebook Mobile had increased significantly. At that time, monthly active users (MAUs) in Nigeria stood at 7.1 million!
The increasing Internet usage via mobile devices by Africans led Facebook to open its first office in Africa in a bid to further expand its reach, grow its business and help Africans connect with family and friends, and grow their businesses also.
Facebook, which was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard college roommates, has grown to become the biggest social networking platform in not just Africa but across the world.