India to have largest Facebook users on mobile by 2017

India will surpass the US to lead the global tally of the largest Facebook userbase on mobile by 2017, market research firm eMarketer said in a report.

According to the report, nearly 1 billion users worldwide will access the popular social network through their mobilephones at least once each month in 2015.

"India — the world's second largest Facebook audience - will surpass 100 million mobile phone Facebook users for the first time this year and by 2017, will have more mobile Facebook users than the US," eMarketer said.

According to the report, Facebook userbase in the US will hit 123.1 million followed by India at 101.5 million.

However, by 2017, India will have the largest mobilephone userbase at 145.9 million followed by the US at 138.8 million, it added.

Recently, Facebook announced that growing Internet penetration and a large youth population has helped it expand its user base in India to 112 million -- which is the largest after the US.

Of the 112 million users in India, more than 99 million users are using the platform on their mobile phones at least once a month. About 45 million users in India are using their mobile phones every day to connect with their friends on Facebook.

Globally, the company has 1.35 billion users, while the daily active users are 864 million.

"The US will remain the largest market for mobile phone Facebook users this year, and nearly 80 per cent of users in the country, or 123.1 million people, will access the site regularly via mobile phones," eMarketer said.

Overall, there will be 1.58 billion mobile phone social network users globally this year and even with the ban in China and strong local social networks in other large population countries, like Russia, mobile Facebook users will still represent over 60 per cent of the worldwide mobile social audience, it added.