Over the years, the number of Facebook users has exploded, with millions of people joining its social media space to communicate, keep in touch with the latest trends or promote business.

However, while Facebook’s active user base continues growing on a global scale, the world’s largest social networking platform seems to be losing ground in the European market.

According to data presented by TradingPlatforms.com, the number of Facebook’s monthly active users in Europe plunged by a massive 20 million in the first half of the year.

European User Base Shrunk Below 2020 Levels

As the third-largest market by Facebook usage penetration, Europe has seen a steady increase in the number of Facebook fans over the past decade. The monthly number of active users has been continually growing since 2013, before reaching its peak in December last year.

According to the company’s earnings report, Facebook had a massive 427 million monthly active users in Europe in Q4 2021, 8 million more than in 2020 and 33 million more than before the Covid-19.

But, after losing 20 million users in the first six months of this year, Facebook’s European user base shrunk below 2020 levels. At the same time, the social media giant reported a growth in the number of users on a global scale, with their number rising from 2.91bn to 2.93bn in this period. Moreover, the report once again confirmed the number of MAUs globally has never taken a backward step since 2012.

However, the plunging number of users is not the only problem Facebook faces in the European market. Regulators are close to stopping Meta, Facebook’s parent company, from sending EU data to the US, bringing a years-long privacy battle to a head. As the company has pointed out many times, this could result in Facebook and Instagram potentially pulling their apps from millions of people and thousands of businesses across the continent.

Growth Outside Europe and North America

The company’s latest earnings report showed that Facebook continues to focus on regions outside Europe and North America. The reward of this effort can be seen in the Asia Pacific region, where the company had significant gains in terms of a growing user base.

There are nearly 330 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country by Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country, it would be ranked fourth in terms of the largest population worldwide.

Besides India, several other markets have more than 100 million Facebook users. The United States ranked as the second-largest market, with nearly 180 million users. Indonesia and Brazil follow with 130 million and 116 million, respectively.

In comparison, the United Kingdom, Facebook’s largest European market, had around 35 million users this year.