Facebook, aiming for global power, is gaining rapidly in Asia

Can Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg create the first really?

t's a big goal, but it's looking less implausible all the time. before, social networks were strong in one area primarily or in several, but never globally. Friendster couldn't catch on in Europe or South America. MySpace was much weaker in Asia than in the U.S.
Facebook, though, is well on its way to establishing dominance in several parts of the world. Already very strong in North America and Europe, Zuckerberg (pictured) looks set to take Asia, too.
According to the folks over at Inside Facebook (which covers the social network ad nauseum), Facebook is making enormous gains in Asia. Among the 30 Asian countries that Inside Facebook tracks, active Facebook usersgrew by 9.6 million from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1, an increase of nearly 20%.

This growth is significant because Asia is the most populous region on Earth. It's also an economic dynamo, likely to provide much of the world's growth. So, a strong Asian position will likely translate into bigger revenues for Facebook. For the record, Google (GOOG), the most easy comparison to Facebook, has constantly struggled to gain market share in Asia, mainly in China and Japan.

As Hong Kong Goes, So Goes China?

If Facebook can gain the same type of purchase in Asia that it has garnered in the U.S. and its revenues follow a Google-like growth curve, then Zuckerberg could have the next truly boffo technology IPO on his hands. Following the numbers certainly implies it's on that track. In India, which has 1.1 billion citizens, Facebook has only 5 million active users, but that tally grew last month by a solid 17%.

Users In Hong Kong grew by only 6%, but nearly 40% of the populace previously uses the social network. Strong penetration in Hong Kong is a good indicator that Facebook will do well in Mainland China, where it has been blocked until now by government authorities who feared the network could be used to circumvent restriction. Inside Facebook does track use among Mainland Chinese who have figured out how to avoid the Great Firewall. Granted, this group represents very early adopters. But Inside Facebook tracked nearly 300% month-over-month growth, an increase that would seem to bode well for Zuckerberg's prospects in the Middle Kingdom.

Only in Japan has Facebook completely fallen flat. It has less than 1 million users in the Land of the Rising Sun, says Inside Facebook.

Clearly, Facebook is pushing hard to grab more users in Asia. It has newly released updates to its iPhone and mobile applications in Japanese- and Chinese-language versions (its lack of a Japanese-language mobile app in a country where the phone is more significant than the computer might help explain why Facebook has unsuccessful there to date). And the company has made globalization a huge priority, creating a technology that makes it easy for users to alter Facebook's language, look and feel to help the company tailor local versions at very little additional cost.