beyondbrics

Facebook seems to be everywhere these days: it reached half a billion users in July, its value is soaring and the inevitable film is coming out in October.

While the site has become synonymous with social networking in the US and Europe, the story is very different in Brazil, where Google’s Orkut is king of the hill. But as Brazilians become more globally connected, Facebook is making inroads into Latin America’s largest economy.

“If you’re in Brazil and you’re not on Orkut, you’re nobody”, says Alex Banks, managing director of Brazil and vice president of Latin America at web research firm ComScore. “It’s incredibly popular, incredibly well used, and it is the Brazilian social network.”

Orkut drew 28.9m visitors in July, according to ComScore – more than three-quarters of Brazil’s internet audience, and more than the combined number of visitors to Facebook and Twitter that month. ComScore estimates that Brazilians spend 14 per cent of their total time online on Orkut, and the average user visits the site 37 times a month.

“These are insane levels of engagement”, Banks told beyondbrics. “I think they use Orkut more than Americans use Facebook, in terms of visits.”

Facebook’s recent global growth has been driven by expanding in non-English speaking countries – particularly in emerging markets where penetration is low. The strategy has already been successful in another Orkut stronghold, India, where ComScore’s figures show that Facebook knocked Orkut off its top spot in July.

In Brazil, Facebook drew 8.2m visits in July, according to ComScore – about 20 per cent of the internet-using population. Orkut’s audience dwarfs that figure, of course, but it’s nonetheless impressive when you note that in July 2009, Facebook drew just 1.3m visitors. 524 per cent growth in a year is nothing to sneeze at. Orkut, meanwhile, ticked up at a much more measured 27 per cent pace over the last year.

(click chart to enlarge)

“Is [Orkut] growing?” Banks said. “No. It’s growing in terms of audience, because the Brazilian audience is growing, but the reach is flat.”

So does Facebook pose a threat to Orkut’s dominance? Probably not, Banks said, because Brazilians use the two networks differently.

“More and more Brazilians are getting on Facebook in order to stay in touch with friends who aren’t on Orkut”, he said.

“This is a globalised world and Brazilians, with a strong currency right now and a strong economy, they’re traveling the world. They keep in touch with their Brazilian friends and family via Orkut but what happens when you meet international people? Facebook is the default global social network right now.”

The trend can be mapped to where Facebook is popular in Brazil: mainly in the southeast, in Rio de Janiero and São Paulo. “People living outside the big cities will be exposed to fewer reasons to join Facebook,” Banks said. “They’re not going to New York, London, Paris.”

It’s worth noting that ComScore’s figures only track internet use in homes and offices – not at cyber cafes, university computer centers and other shared access points – and, crucially, not on mobile devices.

While Brazil boasts more than one mobile phone per person, Banks said, mobile internet use is not yet as prevalent as in the US and Europe. That’s because Brazilians tend to use pay-as-you-go plans rather than the unlimited data plans common elsewhere. But that is likely to change, Banks said, and once it does, “all the ingredients are there for heavy [internet] use on mobile devices”.

That will be good news for Facebook, which dominates mobile internet traffic in many countries. What Banks calls the “globalisation of social networking” shows no signs of slowing.

Related reading:
Facebook dislodges Orkut from top position in India, Reuters
Facebook looks to emerging markets to boost users to 1bn, beyondbrics