Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg is hopeful that the India market will help to push Facebook even further into the global market, with hundreds of millions of potentially untapped users ready to get online. The social network's chief operating officer also said that at present India is the second largest market for Facebook and believes that it could be the most important going forward.
According to statistics from eMarketer, a research company, India is to account for the fastest growth of the social media platform this year and already has more than 100 million Indians on the platform, making it the second highest total number of users after the United States.
"India is Facebook's second largest market, fastest growing market and fastest growing Internet connectivity in Asia Pacific. It is of high priority for us," Sandberg said.
Her comments came after she met with new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over how to get Facebook assisting in development in the country.
Many observers believe India's economic progress suits it to be the driving force for social media, as the country's burgeoning middle class continues to grow and become able to enter the global market with force. And as Facebook continues to push into regions of the world underserved by the Internet, it appears India is the top place to begin.
"India has the potential to become the largest economy in the world. And if you look at economic growth, particularly recently, jobs are a very hard situation all over the world," she continued.
"From the US to developing markets, everyone is very concerned about jobs. And the majority of the growth, as I understand it, is certainly here, certainly in the US. In most countries, I have visited, SMBs are the way to growth," she said.
Like Sandberg, many technology observers see India as one of the top markets to enter and there is much optimism over the recent positive trends being made in the country that are opening up the market to social media and other media enterprises. Facebook hopes that it can hit the ground hard and assist the entrepreneurial spirit that is developing in India.
Sandberg argued that as small and medium business growth remains strong in India, it is a market that should be seen as a game-changer.
"People are connecting to people and getting more customers and that's what leads to economic growth," she added.
