With Eyes on Asia, Facebook Invests in Underwater Net Cable

Facebook is looking to boost the internet speed in Asia-Pacific countries by investing in the Asia Pacific Gateway. That’s a 6,214-mile underwater internet cable from Malaysia to Japan, with cables branching off to other countries in the region. It is scheduled to begin operating by June 2014 with a 54.8 terabit-per-second capability. A Facebook spokesperson commented:

Our investment in this cable will help support our growth in south Asia, making it possible for us to provide a better user experience for a greater number of Facebook users in countries like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Asia is definitely a growing market for Facebook. It has made much progress in big Asian markets such as Japan, Korea, and Thailand.

We should also note that Social Bakers, a prominent source for Facebook metrics, has recently announced that Asia has overtaken North America to be the second-largest continent in terms of Facebook users, and that’s despite only having an online penetration rate of 6 percent.

[Sources: AllFacebook; cable map image from DailyWireless]