TOKYO —Facebook more than doubled its users in Japan over the past six months as more Japanese joined the world’s most popular online social network. The number of users in the country has surpassed 10 million, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, at left, said Thursday in Tokyo, where he met Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
Facebook is useful during a disaster “allowing victims to share information,” Noda told Zuckerberg during the meeting at the prime minister’s residence today.
Online networks’ popularity in Japan gained since the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, when parents and children used sites such as Facebook to locate one another. Japanese companies, including Fast Retailing, owner of the Uniqlo brand, also are using the site to reach customers.
Facebook opened a Tokyo office in September 2010 and introduced Connection Search, an application that links job-seeking students. The network had 13.5 million unique users in Japan in February, up from 6 million a year earlier, according to data from Nielsen. Bloomberg News
