Facebook Loses Nearly 6 Million Users in U.S. in May

Facebook lost nearly 6 million users in the U.S. last month, according to Inside Facebook, a service that tracks the social networking site co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

The news comes as Facebook reached 687 million active users at the beginning of June, even though growth has been lower than normal for a second consecutive month. The site added 11.8 million users in May vs. 13.9 million in April.

In the U.S., total active users fell from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of the month.

Canada also saw a drop of 1.52 million, to 16.6 million, while the U.K., Norway and Russia also posted drops of more than 100,000 users.

"By the time Facebook reaches around 50 percent of the total population in a given country (plus or minus, depending on Internet access rates in that country), growth generally slows to a halt,” Inside Facebook’s Eric Eldon told the U.K.'s Telegraph. “So far, Facebook has been able to make up stalls and losses with big gains in heavily populated developing countries like Mexico, Brazil, India and Indonesia."

But Magnus Hoglund, CEO of Law360.com who has worked on digital media companies for several years, told the U.K.'s Guardian that the new numbers don't bode well for the site.

"From my experience, I get the sense that being on Facebook is not cool anymore," Hoglund said. "The early adopters and trend-setters are moving away. [But] these are also exactly the type of people brand advertisers want to reach; if they are leaving, it doesn't look good for Facebook."