Orkut India nervous as Facebook India doubles
By Shalini Singh

While Facebook is the hottest social networking website in the world, its domination is not absolute.  Google’s Orkut was the first to move into India and Brazil and has a commanding lead in both these countries. Till 2008, it seemed that Orkut would continue its domination in India and would manage to face off the Facebook challenge. Now Orkut is nervous.

Facebook has captured the imagination of many young Indians. And it is well on its way to snipping at the heels of Orkut India.

InsideFacebook, in a report  dated July 2 and titled ‘Is Orkut in Trouble’, is reporting

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While Facebook has over 230 million active users and has been rapidly growing around the world in the last 24 months, Orkut, the social network run by Google, has remained dominant in Brazil and India. Although Facebook has grown slowly in those two countries, it’s never been able to turn the corner - until now.

Starting about 60 days ago, Facebook’s growth began accelerating rapidly in both Brazil and India, growing several times faster in May and June than it did in March and April.

Just as Facebook started exploding in Brazil, the same thing was happening in India, the other major country where Orkut is the leading social network with 13 million monthly active users.

While Facebook has been growing slowly and steadily in India for the last couple of years, Facebook exploded in May and June, doubling from 1.6 million to 3.2 million monthly active users in the country in the last 60 days.
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