The other week Hitwise came out with stats questioning whether Facebook's growth was beginning to slow in the UK. This was on top of US figures from June showing that the uptake among 18-44 year olds had dropped.
Now more evidence, this time from emarketer and Inside Facebook.
The latest figures for the UK show that Facebook fell in June and rose by only 1.8% in July, meaning that on 1 Aug there were less British Facebook users than two months previously. US growth however seems to be back on track, albeit slightly at 2.4% from July to August.
Do these stats give any indication that Facebook is likely to fall out of favour anytime soon? Not at all, Hitwise's Robin Goad says it might actually be a sign of Facebook hitting maturity in the major markets of the US and UK and not really being able to hoover up any more users. As a result, trends from now on may well be more seasonal in nature.
For example, in July 44.2% of UK residents visited Facebook, an astonishing number when you think about it. Only the US at 42.1% penetration comes close. As the Google of social media, Facebook is becoming pretty ubiquitous, and if you are a marketer unavoidable.
By comparison, emarketer says that France with 30% visiting the network offers much greater growth potential. As a result those double digit annual growth figures will still be happening. Just not in Facebook's largest two markets.