Inside Facebook Gold has reported that Facebook is still enjoying a growth in the Arab world, especially in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. The chart below shows the number of users in the past 3 months for the 3 countries:
While the article published by Inside Facebook Gold discusses more the politics in the region and whether or not Facebook may be blocked in the future by the religious folks or an upset government (which is an important point for Facebook to consider if they would like to continue expanding in the region) however I would like to discuss the competition that Facebook will be facing in the region.
Other than the big social media sites I have been hearing a lot about local social media sites popping up in the region, for example you have:
Madina.com which has a very familiar homepage, its a clear copy of Facebook’s homepage except in green instead of the blue. Although it doesn’t quite have the same number of users as Facebook, but it can do some damage in the region if they capatolize in capturing the religious crowd of Egypt, Saudi and the east such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore (8% of the site’s traffic comes from Singapore).
Friendawy which is also big in Egypt and the MENA region, in fact it has almost more than twice the traffic that Madina.com has, even though the interface isn’t as neat as madina’s but the fact that it is in Arabic might have something to do with it. Unlike Madina which has the initial interface in English.
Let us know below if you use any other social media sites from the MENA region.