42% of Canadians are on Facebook

by Todd Lucier on December 15, 2009

How Many Canadians are on Facebook?
Intrigued by Facebook user demographic data from @edlee and Canadian Census Data from StatsCan (July 2009) I charted Facebook user accounts against the Canadian population for different age ranges to determine how many Canadians have Facebook accounts.

Since the StatsCan data used different age group values, I interpolated the data to estimate of how many Canadians there are in each age group.

Interesting things to note about the Number of Canadians on Facebook

  • There are 660 000 more Facebook accounts in the 18-24 age bracket than there are Canadians in that age group.  (could be due to abandoned accounts, multiple accounts, users misreporting their age, younger users accessing Facebook)
  • According to the data, more than 50% of people in each age group under age 45  have Facebook accounts.
  • The data indicates 30% of Canadians aged 45-54 are on Facebook.
  • Overall, 42% of Canadians could have Facebook accounts.
  • If accounting for the 4.8 Million Canadians under age 13 (not of Facebook age), 49% of Canadians who are old enough to use Facebook could have accounts.

Canadian Facebook users and Canadian Population (chart 1)

How Many Canadians are on Facebook

Percentage of Canadians on Facebook (chart 2)

% of Canadians with Facebook Accounts

Canadians on Facebook (table 1)
Canadians on Facebook by age group

Help make sense of the number of Canadians on Facebook

What does the data indicate to you?

  • Brian
    Great work Todd... It would be interesting to see the same take on the numbers in 2011 for growth :)
  • Buzz
    ok that didnt help me at all...
  • Christine
    Is there a way to determine how many Canadians are part of a B2B community within Facebook?
  • I'd love to know the number of Canadians using Twitter, if you have that.
  • cottageguru
    If these stats are anywhere near accurate then it means that cottage rental owners should be using Facebook to reach their target market - those in the 35 - 54 age group. That sure is a lot of people.
  • I believe the authors assumption that the reason the under 18 is out of whack is due to younger people lying about their age is probably correct. I was recently in a grade 8 classroom where very few of the kids were 13, but all had Facebook accounts.
  • It is because of people studying in Canada but not Canadian: they might are indicated as being in Canada, but they were not in the previous census and will not be in the next one as they might be outside the country.
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