Business

Report: Facebook loses 6M users in US

While Facebook is still marching toward its goal of 1 billion users, there are signs its popularity is peaking in mature markets, in particular the US.

The social-media giant lost 6 million users in the US last month, falling from 155.2 million to 149.4 million. The drop marks the first time the site has lost users in the past year, according to Inside Facebook, a research and marketing firm.

Although the social network grew on a global basis, reaching 687 million users, most of the new users “continue to come from countries that are relatively late in adopting Facebook,” the report said.

Facebook doesn’t release user figures, so Inside Facebook based its estimates on data drawn from Facebook’s ad tool.

“Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn’t designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook,” a spokeswoman said.

“We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook,” she added.

Inside Facebook acknowledged that the ad tool data can be “buggy, delayed or otherwise unclear,” and turned to other tracking services to back up its findings.

One tracking service, Compete also showed a decline in US users, down to 137.9 million in April from 140 million in March. However, ComScore showed Facebook gaining 3.16 million monthly unique visitors in May for a total of 157.2 million.

Although a slowdown could affect Facebook’s plans to go public in 2012 with a valuation estimated to hit $100 billion, neither Wall Street nor Madison Avenue is sweating slowing growth.