Facebook's temptation tanks almost depleted in UK

by Steven Mostyn - Aug 11 2010, 11:36

Facebook, the social networking juggernaut that has no equal and knows no bounds, may be about to hit something of a brick wall over in the United Kingdom. Not because it’s losing appeal or popularity, but rather because everyone who wants a Facebook account seemingly already has one.

According to figures published by web-analytics firm Experian Hitwise, there are around 62 million people in the UK, 26 million of which have buckled to temptation and signed up with Facebook. Yet, with more than one third of the entire population in Facebook’s back pocket, Hitwise posits that “the rapid period of the site’s growth is probably now over in the UK.“

Although Facebook remains the second most visited online service in the UK, a position only bested by the UK variant of Google’s search engine, the average amount of site session time has decreased from 30 minutes (in Dec. 2009) to 27.36 minutes (between Jun and July 2010).

However, despite Facebook facing the possibility of saturation in Blighty, one in every six Internet pages viewed across the country during the month of July was a Facebook page.

“Facebook’s market share of UK page views has trebled over the last five years, but growth has slowed significantly over the last six months,” outlined Robin Goad, research director at Experian Hitwise UK.

“Last month there was a slight decline in share, but this may well be down to seasonality (the August/September back to school/college/university period is significant for Facebook,” he added.

Beyond Facebook’s solid traction in the UK, the network’s global reach is still going from strength to strength.

Specifically, Facebook recently surpassed 500 million registered account holders worldwide, a milestone applauded by founder Mark Zuckerberg who strongly believes the service will soon secure a billion users.

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