As the era of mobiles slowly takes over, Facebook expects the number of PC users logging into the social networking site to drop further in the coming years.
Smartphones have revolutionized how people use the Internet these days. From banking to chatting, browsing to ticket booking - everything is now done over smartphones rather than a personal computer. A recent report published by NDTV revealed that the social networking giant Facebook is expecting the number of users who log into their accounts through PCs to drop even further in the coming years, especially in the United States and Europe.
United States is one of Facebook's biggest markets. According to Facebook's earnings report for 2013, users logging in through handsets like smartphones and tablets were responsible for driving up its advertising revenues 76 percent to $2.34 billion during the December 2013 quarter.
"We anticipate the rate of growth in mobile usage will continue to be the primary driver of our user growth for the foreseeable future and that usage through PCs may be flat or decline worldwide, including in key markets such as the United States and other developed markets in Europe and Asia," Facebook said, according to NDTV.
Several reports highlighted that the social networking site was slowing losing its charm and hold over the social networking market. But figures revealed by Facebook paints a different picture, which shows daily active users (DAU) rose 22 percent to 757 million during December 2013 compared to 618 million the previous year. Majority of the users were from the United States, India and Brazil.
"Overall growth in DAUs was driven largely by increased mobile usage of Facebook. The number of DAUs using personal computers (PCs) decreased modestly in December 2013 compared to the same period in 2012," the company added, NDTV reports." In all regions, an increasing number of our DAUs are accessing Facebook through mobile devices, with users in Brazil, US and India representing key sources of mobile growth on average during December 2013 as compared to the same period in 2012."
In 2013, more than 395 million mobile DAUs accessed Facebook solely through mobile applications or its mobile website. This was a 65 per cent increase from 240 million during the same period in 2012. Mobile advertising revenue also increased during this period to 53 per cent from 23 percent the previous year.
