Credits, the official virtual currency on Facebook, enables the purchase of gifts and virtual goods for games and applications on Facebook platform. Popular games like Farmville, Millionaire City, Hotel City, Petville, Bejeweled Blitz, Hotel City, Barn Buddy, Likeness and hundreds other games and applications are already accepting Facebook Credits (up-to-date list of games here). There are over 200 million unique Facebook users playing games each month. Soon, these social gamers can buy Credits using MOLPoints. And they can reload the MOLPoints through MOL’s network of over 500,000 physical (e.g. 7-Eleven, cybercafes, bookstores), online banking and mobile payment channels, in over 80 countries.

“The relationship with Facebook demonstrates MOL’s growing role as a leading payment provider for social networking sites in Asia, especially in our core countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, group chief executive officer for MOL Global.

He added, “Over the last few quarters, we have seen a double-digit increase in payment transactions and payment volume. This partnership continues MOL’s momentum to build the largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network in Asia.”

According to Vaughan Smith, director of business and corporate development at Facebook, “working with MOL means we can offer the benefits of Facebook Credits to millions of people in Asia using a payment system that is already widely used and trusted. We’re investing in the long-term future of Facebook Credits and we view this agreement as a major opportunity to broaden the availability of a simple, unified currency that can be used in games and applications across Facebook.”

Currently, Facebook users can purchase Facebook Credits using credit cards and Paypal. However, they can also earn Credits via other means, such as drinking a Slurpee.

In Asia, the availability of physical channels to pay for Credits can further spur the virtual goods economy on Facebook. The 18-to-24 is the largest age group in most Asian countries – Indonesia, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam among others. Many in the age group don’t own a credit card. Also, Asian gamers are spending big money and today, the virtual goods market in Asia is worth $7 billion!

UPDATES
(1) Signing of strategic partnership between MOL Global and Facebook

(2) Official press release

Coming soon: Facebook Credits available at retail stores in Asia originally appeared on GreyReview on July 8, 2010.

During Chirp, co-founder @Biz also revealed that 75% of Twitter traffic comes from outside Twitter.com. So, Fred Wilson’s argument that “Twitter ecosystem is about 3x Twitter.com” seems to apply. However, comScore’s estimate of 60 million unique visitors at Twitter.com may be way off! The use of the 60-million figure in my previous estimates resulted in inflated estimates of Twitter population in Asia.

With the use new official total registered users, the new estimates of total Twitter users in each country are reduced by roughly half (compared to my previous estimates). Maybe now, the estimates are closer to reality.

Asian Countries, by % of Twitter Users and Total Users

105,779,710 users and new estimates of Twitter users in Asia originally appeared on GreyReview on April 20, 2010.

These days, 70% of Facebook users are from outside US. In Asia, Facebook is fast becoming the one the region’s leading social networks. Indonesia has the fourth highest number of Facebook users in the world, after US, UK and Turkey. With 18.9 million users, Indonesia is well ahead of Philippines, the country with 10.5 million Facebook users (refer to table below). This is followed by India (6.8 million), Taiwan (5.8 million) and Malaysia (5.1 million). In terms of penetration rate, Hong Kong has the highest “Facebook users per country population” rate in Asia, at 39%, followed by Singapore (38%), Taiwan (25%), Malaysia (18%) and Philippines (11%). The total Facebook users in Asia is 59.6 million, or about 15% of the global Facebook population.

(UPDATE: The % of Facebook Users over Total Online Users to provide a much richer perspective on Facebook use in Asia. Based on the suggestion by Gen Kanai – see his comment below.)

In Asia, the two dominant age groups on Facebook are “18 – 24″ and “25 – 34″ (see Table below). The youthful “18 – 24″ age group is dominant in Indonesia, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In Pakistan, Vietnam and Bangladesh, the age group constituted more than half of the Facebook population in their respective country.

The “25 – 34″ is the dominant age group in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea and interestingly, these are all developed economies. In these developed economies, Facebook users above the age of 25 constitute more than half of the Facebook users population in each respective country. The reverse is true for the developing economies i.e. Indonesia, Philippines, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where more than half of Facebook population is below the age of 24.

Facebook’s Asian engines of growth: College students in developing countries and working adults/professionals in developed countries. Some possible explanations: (a) youth population in developing nations is far more than the developed ones (in other words, developed nations with relatively aging population), and/or (b) working adults are more web 2.0-savvy in developed economies. What do you think?

All the above figures were extracted from Facebook Advertising page, over a period of two hours on March 01 2010. ¶ @zhiQ

Facebook in Asia: Total Users and Age Groups [Latest STATS] originally appeared on GreyReview on March 2, 2010.

comScore reported the total global unique users of Twitter.com has reached 60 million. However, Fred Wilson argued that “Twitter ecosystem is about 3x Twitter.com.” Twitter ecosystem refers to all interactions with Twitter APIs, via the plethora of third-party Twitter apps i.e. Tweetdeck, bit.ly, Facebook, iPhone apps, etc. Wilson went on to summarize:

You can talk about Twitter.com and then you can talk about the Twitter ecosystem. One is a web site. The other is a fundamental part of the Internet infrastructure. And the latter is 3-5x bigger than the former and that delta is likely to grow even larger.

Let’s assume that Twitter ecosystem is 3-times the size of Twitter.com. With comScore’s 60 million unique visitors worldwide at Twitter.com, the Twitter ecosystem is estimated at 180 million. The total Twitter users across the globe (Twitter.com + Twitter ecosystem) is 240 million!

The table below weaves together Sycomos’ report, comScore’s estimate and Fred Wilson’s Twitter ecosystem. The “% Twitter Users” is derived from Sycomos’ report and the total Twitter users is based on 240 million users worldwide. Indonesia with 5.6 million users, followed by Japan (3.5 million) and India (2.3 million). Malaysia with 6th largest Twitter population in Asia with estimated 1.1 million users (and this is far, far, far more than my previous estimate of Twitter population in Malaysia). And the estimated total Twitter users in Asia is 18.6 million.

Asian Countries, by % of Twitter Users and Total Users

Mashup of figures from different reports to derive estimates potentially lead to inaccurate conclusions (different reports with different sets of assumptions and methodologies). However, Sysocomos’ “% of Twitter users” gives us some ideas on Twitter use across Asia. With the percentage, at least we can derive Twitter population size by country, using the conservative comScore’s 60 million, plus-ecosystem’s 240 million or any other estimates out there. ¶ @zhiQ

UPDATE April 20 2010: See the latest estimates of Twitter users in Asia here.

UPDATE Feb 20 2010: Based on Google, the estimated, unduplicated number of people who visited Twitter.com over a 1-month period:
1. Japan: 9.9 million users
2. Indonesia: 5.1 million
3. India: 4.2 million
4. South Korea: 1.5 million
5. Philippines: 1.3 million
6. Thailand: 910k
7. Malaysia: 910k
8. China: 680k
9. Singapore: 240k

Image from textually.org.

Twitter in Asia: Total Users, by Country originally appeared on GreyReview on January 26, 2010.