Facebook accounts for 1 in every 7 online minutes

We already know Facebook dominates the social networking space, but we often forget that the service is also still growing: not only in terms of users, but also in how much time the average user spends on the service. A recent report from comScore, titled It's a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It's Headed, looked at the current state of social networking activity around the globe and shed some light on just how much the social networking giant controls the market.

The report found Facebook reached more than half (55 percent) of the world's global audience in October 2011. Furthermore, Facebook accounted for 1 in every 7 minutes spent online around the world and 3 in every 4 social networking minutes.

While Facebook is the leading social networking site in the vast majority of countries, it is not the leader everywhere. In the beginning of 2010, Facebook was the category leader in 30 of the 43 markets that comScore reports on at the individual level. Since then, it has taken the lead in six additional countries, leaving just seven countries where it still isn't dominating: Brazil, China, Japan, Poland, Russia, South Korea, and Vietnam. As you can see in the graphs pictured below, putting aside China and Vietnam, which Menlo Park is blocked in, Facebook is quickly gaining on its competitors in each respective country.

"The emergence and widespread global adoption of social networks has vastly influenced human interaction on an individual, community and larger societal level, and underscores the convergence of the online and offline worlds," Linda Boland Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of global development, said in a statement. "Regardless of geography, social networks are weaving themselves ever more intricately into the fabric of the digital experience, opening a world of new opportunity for business and technology."

See also:

• Google to Facebook: "We are delighted to be underestimated"
• Facebook is destroying Google in time spent online (chart)
• Facebook now lets you update Twitter
• Google: Facebook is becoming "a closed walled garden"
• Sean Parker: Facebook's power users have gone to Twitter, Google+
• Facebook is not 20 times the size of Google+; it's even bigger
• The rich flock to Facebook, don't bother with Twitter