Facebook suffers first ever drop in UK audience

Edited by the Marketingservicestalk editorial team Feb 25, 2008

After 17 successive monthly increases in UK audience, Facebook has suffered its first drop; falling 5 per cent from 8.9 million UK Unique Visitors in Dec 07 to 8.5 million in Jan 08.

Data from Nielsen Online also reveals, however, that Facebook's audience is still 712 per cent higher than it was a year ago and nine per cent higher than three months ago The most popular social networks in the UK in January 2008 were: Facebook; MySpace; Bebo; Windows Live Spaces; BBC Communities; Friends Reunited; Yahoo! Groups; MSN; Google Groups; and Piczo.

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online, commented: "Just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, so one month of falling audiences doesn't spell the decline of Facebook or social networking.

"However, most of the leading social networks are less popular in the UK than they were a year ago.

"It was inevitable that the early growth rates couldn't be sustained and the larger networks have been plateauing over the last few months.

"Growth among the big players looks to be more about getting people from their competitors not attracting new people to social networking.

"However, real growth potential lies in the niche networks - those based on a particular lifestyle or interest, such as travel, music, wealth or business.".