With the growth rate continuing to accelerate

Jul 16, 2009 06:32 GMT  ·  By

Facebook was already a giant at 200 million users worldwide, by far the largest social network and one of the top ten visited web sites in the world. And seeing how it's been growing at a rapid pace for a few years now it wouldn't be too surprising to find that the growth is slowing down. However, this is actually not the case; in fact, it seems to be accelerating, as Facebook now boasts 250 million registered users worldwide, gaining 50 million in just three months.

"From the beginning, Facebook hasn't been about building a website. Facebook is about all of the people using it and all of the things that are important to you. The 250 million of you on Facebook today are what gives Facebook life and makes the site meaningful to everyone using it, so we thank you," co-founder and CEO Mark ZUckerberg wrote.

"Each person who joins makes Facebook better by adding a presence to the site that friends and family can connect with and feel closer to. For us, growing to 250 million users isn't just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world."

More surprising than the raw number is perhaps the rate at which Facebook is acquiring them, at 700,000 to 750,000 new users per day in the recent weeks, according to InsideFacebook, though, as a rough estimate, considering it's been a little over three months since the company announced it had reached 200 million users, the number would come to an average of 500,000 per day. Most of the growth comes from outside the US, roughly 70 percent of it, but it also managed to consolidate its position as the number one social network in the States too.

With the announcement of the 250 million milestone came a revised stats page with some interesting information because, not only is it the biggest social network, it also has some of the most engaged users with 120 million logging in at least once a day and 30 million updating their statuses at least daily. A recent study also showed that it was the most visited site in the US with users spending 4 hours and 39 minutes on average every month.