Analyst: Google+ shoots past 62M users

While it is still nowhere near Facebook's 800 million users, Google's social network Google+ has passed the 62-million mark and may reach a membership of 400 million by the end of 2012, a statistician said Wednesday.

 

Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com, said Google's growth is accelerating, adding up to 625,000 new users per day.

 

"Google+ is adding new users at a very rapid pace. It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 signups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," he said in a post on his Google+ account.

 

Citing his calculations, he said the Google+ member base grew from 10 million last July 13 to 38 million last Oct. 1, with Google's Larry Page announcing "more than 40 million users" on Oct 13.

 

Allen calculated the membership of Google+ reached 50 million last Dec. 1, 62 million last Dec. 27, and may reach 65.8 million on New Year's Day.

 

By February 1, he forecast the membership to be at 85.2 million.

 

"What is really remarkable is that nearly 1/4th of all Google+ users (24.01% to be precise) will have joined in December alone," he noted.

 

"If this rate of new signups (625k daily) continues then Google+ will reach 100 million users on Feb. 25th and 200 million users on August 3. They will finish 2012 with 293 million users," he added.

 

Accelerated growth

 

Allen said he expects the growth to continue to accelerate as Google can continue to integrate Google+ into its other products and word of mouth will continue to build.

 

But he said the key to growth is Google's Android OS for smartphones and tablets - with 700,000 Android devices activated daily.

 

"Most importantly, 700,000 Android devices are activated daily and this will become a very significant source of new users for Google+. That number will also grow next year,"  he said.

 

As more users sign up, the value of the network will increase for everyone, and the network effect will become powerful, he added.

 

"It won't be long before new users start encountering family and friends as well as the thriving tech and media sharing community that embraced Google+ early on," he said.

 

And as more Google+ APIs are released next year, developers will be able to build experiences on top of Google+ and make it even better, he added.

 

"Based on the accelerated growth I'm seeing and all the dials and levers Google can still utilize, and the developer ecosystem that will be developed, I predict that 2012 is going to be a breakout year for Google+ and that it will end next year with more than 400 million users," he said. — TJD, GMA News