Face the FACTS - Facebook is here to stay!

Facebook 100 Million Mobile Users Strong (And Growing)
by Mark Walsh

Are you ready to Face the FACTS?

Facebook on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 announced that it has surpassed 100 million active mobile users worldwide. The new milestone comes only six months after the social network hit 65 million users on Facebook Mobile.

In a blog post on Friday, Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's vice president of user growth, mobile and international, highlighted the expansion of the company's mobile operations across its sites, text messaging and applications. Through its redesigned sites (m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com), Facebook is available on any mobile browser in 70 languages.

"With the explosion of smartphones, we want to make sure people have a great Facebook experience that scales with their device especially as people have begun to upgrade their devices more frequently," wrote Palihapitiya.

He added that Facebook had also recently introduced a URL-shortener called FB.ME to share content more easily via text message and updated Facebook applications across various handsets and operating systems including Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung. In its Mobile Internet Report released in December, Morgan Stanley spotlighted Facebook as one of the companies expected to guide development of the mobile Web.

"Facebook has already become a primary way for millions of people to stay connected and Facebook's lead is likely to be extended as more consumers use increasingly powerful mobile devices (with photo/video + high-speed access) and the communications options on Facebook (like voice/video chat and other services) continue to rise," read the report.

The proportion of U.S. mobile subscribers social networking via cell phones is still small, but growing. Almost 16% of mobile users over 13 accessed a social network or blog in December, up from 13.% in September, according to new comScore data.
Separately, Facebook in December ranked as the third-most-popular mobile site, with an audience of 18 million, behind Google Search and Yahoo Mail, according to Nielsen.