Facebook shares fall as statistics reveal users are dropping

Facebook shares have been reasonably stable for the past few weeks – trading at the $30 level give or take some small fluctuations. However, this week they have fallen a couple of dollars to $28 for quite an important reason. Facebook’s popularity has been declining over the past 6 months and naturally the stock market has responded negatively.

Zynga, who make games and apps for Facebook, are often a very good indirect indicator of Facebook’s overall performance. Any negative losses on Facebook tend to rub off on Zynga, that was the case this time too as they saw a drop of 5-percent on Tuesday, closing at a year-low of $4.58.

The drop in stock prices for Facebook and Facebook dependent companies comes as a result of the latest figures which show Facebook’s popularity is declining both at a European and North American level. Facebook’s American following declined by 1.1% in the last 6 months whilst the European user base fell too.

Facebook still boasts 900 million active users every month but it can’t see continous growth unless it starts to push into new markets. Facebook’s future growth markets seem to be those of Russian, China, India and other international markets, stagnation is now starting to set in across the “western” nations as the general public is becoming increasingly fed up and bored of social media outlets.

It is yet to be seen whether the decline is as a result of other social media companies profiting at Facebook’s expense (e.g. Twitter) or whether it is just an overall trend with social media for the European and North American markets.

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