Facebook ... one billion and counting

Facebook now has over a billion monthly active users, according to its billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“If you're reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honour of serving you. Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life,” he wrote on his Facebook Wall in a post from East Palo Alto, California, on Thursday.’

He also posted a ‘brand video’ to mark the occasion, a first of its kind branding by the world’s largest online social network. “We honour the everyday things people have always made to bring us together: Chairs, doorbells, airplanes, bridges, games. These are all things that connect us. And now Facebook is a part of this tradition of things that connect us too.”

The social network reached one billion monthly active users mark at 12.45 p.m. Pacific Time. According to a fact sheet put out by Facebook, the median age of the users is 22 years. India was among the top five countries that connected to Facebook when the one billion mark happened, the others being Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States.

Among other statistics the company highlighted on Thursday, it noted that Facebook has so far had 1.13 trillion ‘likes,’ 140.3 billion friend connections and has had over 17 billion location-tagged posts.

It has more than 600 million mobile users.

The social network is listed on the U.S. stock market and was trading at $21.98 on Thursday.