Arabic - The Language of Facebook?

'Since it was launched in 2009, use of the Arabic Facebook interface has skyrocketed to reach some 10 million users today. At the moment, they represent about a third of all Facebook users in the Arab world, but itâ??s expected that within a year Arabic will overtake English to become the most popular Facebook language in the region.

Spot On Public Relations, a Middle Eastern publicity agency specializing in on-line social media, found that two times as many people log on to Facebook in the Middle East and North Africa than purchase a daily newspaper.

â??Whatâ??s fascinating for us is not Facebookâ??s overall growth in the Middle East but its growth in Arabic,â? Alexander McNabb, director of Spot On PR told The Media Line.

According to their study, Arabic Facebook has grown about 175% a year, double the overall rate of the mushrooming use of Facebook worldwide. In some countries, like Algeria, it grew a whopping 423% annually.

â??Until recently, many marketers pretty much took for granted that the regionâ??s Facebook users were English-speaking Arabs or expatriates, using Facebook in English and representing a fairly elite group of on-line consumers. It has become apparent that this is now far from being true,â? the study found. â??We can expect Arabic to become the most popular Facebook langue in the region within a year.â?

The Arabic platformâ??s 10 million users make up about 35% of the regionâ??s Facebook subscribers, up from 24% in May 2010.

â??The new phenomenon we are seeing is the growth in Arabic language usage, which in some parts of the region is truly phenomenal,â? McNabb said.

According to their figures, 56% of Facebook users in Egypt (3.8 million) opt for the Arabic language version. In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, 41% use Arabic and in Saudi Arabia itâ??s 61%. By contrast, Morocco has 17% recorded Arabic users and at the bottom of the list is the United Arab Emirates, with its big expatriate population, with just 10%.

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