While Facebook hasn't published figures about its mobile user numbers for over a year, a US analyst has discovered a way to dig up the data and has uncovered some interesting results.

Digging up the dirt

According to Tech Crunch, Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis, found a loophole in Facebook's Graph API that allowed him to record the socal network's mobile user figures up until November 2012. Here's what he found.

Android beats iPhone

Facebook's Android user base is growing at a greater rate than iPhone users, despite the fact that Facebook is found on a lower percentage of Android devices.

In September 2011 Facebook had 66 million mobile active users for Android and 91 million for iPhone. Jump to November 2012 and Android has more than trebled to 192.8 million users, with iPhone increasing by just over 50 per cent to 147.2 million.

However iPhone owners remain far more likely to use Facebook than their Android counterparts, with 73.6 per cent using Facebook's native app compared to 35 per cent of Android users.

This shows that Android looks set to drive Facebook's mobile momentum. It also means that Facebook will have to get more serious about its mobile offering for Android, which often lags behind Facebook's iOS releases.

iPad eases ahead

Facebook's two million iPad users in September 2011 exploded to 48 million mobile active users in September 2012, with an estimated 48 per cent of all iPad users installing Facebook's native app.

Out of synch

Interestingly, only 27 per cent of iOS devices are using Facebook's iOS 6 integration, meaning the majority of users aren't using, or interested, in the synching and sharing options that is the basis of Facebook's latest update.

Facebook Camera isn't a pretty picture

A month after Facebook bought Instagram in May 2013 it rolled out its own mobile camera offering, Facebook Camera.

Instagram has since surpassed 100 million users, but Facebook Camera seems stagnant. After launching Camera had 1.4 million users, and six months later has 1.5 million users.

What's next?

2012 marked the first time Facebook got serious about its mobile offering, increasing the speed, beefing up features and offering new advertising options.

This data shows that Facebook faces a challenge is keeping its many mobile offerings up to date and appealing to its 1 billion users.

It will be interesting to see how Facebook manages this while monetising in 2013.

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