British blogger and Facebook-watcher Nick Burcher has updated his regular statistics and published an impressive table detailing the growth of Facebook membership in the social network’s top 30 markets over the period of both the last 12 and 24 months.

The chart, taken from Burcher’s post, is below and, from an Asian standpoint it makes interesting reading.

Two points initially stand out from the graphic.

1. A number of Asian (Southeast Asian to be exact) countries figure highly in the list based on member numbers

2. Growth rates over the last 12 and 24 months are generally highest in the featured Asian countries.

Thailand – with estimated growth of Facebook members in excess of 240% in 2010 – is the second highest grower behind only Brazil, where Facebook has made global headlines closing in on dominant Google-owned social network Orkut – which is particularly impressive and testament to the huge interest in Facebook and social networking in Thailand over the last year.

While this post doesn’t go into detail explaining the reasons behind Thailand’s growth, I’ve written about the factors in the past here and here, while many of the facts (bar the Thai political issues) are similar and explain growth elsewhere in the neighbouring region.

Taking things a little further, the below chart ranks each country by growth in Facebook members over the last 12 months.

Once again, it is clear that Asia is where a lot of growth is taking place, with Southeast Asia well represented at the top with Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia all posting rises in excess of 100%, while India’s 220% is also worthy of reference.

Clearly Burcher’s findings demonstrate that alongside South America – with Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela amongst the faster growers – Asia is leading the expansion of Facebook’s membership base, with Southeast Asia in particular playing a key role at this stage.

Looking at the five Southeast Asian markets separately shows just what growth Facebook is seeing in the region.

Across the five Southeast Asian markets there are close to 85 million registered Facebook users, given that there were a shade over 110 registered users across the whole of Asia on 1 January 2011, according to Social Media Today, South East Asia has emerged as the dominant force for growth across the continent with the five biggest SE Asian countries seeing almost 150% growth collectively in 2010 and a staggering 2,404% increase in members since January 2008.

These stats go some way to explaining the opening of the company’s Southeast Asian office in Singapore last year.

But, these are just examples of the most established Facebook markets. Burcher began his tracking back in 2008, since then Facebook has grown into a global phenomenon with further examples of growth in newer markets which Burcher has been unable to observe behind his focus on these 30 key markets chosen two years ago.

Social Media Today, again, shows the highest climbers across Asia over the last quarter. The fact that Thailand, the second fastest grower on Burcher’s list and yet comes in in 10th below demonstrates the next level of growth which is seeing Facebook establish itself in new markets.

What does this all mean?

From Burcher’s data it is clear that Facebook’s rate of growth in the West is slow, while uptake in developing regions like Asia and South America is continuing to grow at a sizeable rate.

As Internet penetration and access continues to grow in Southeast Asia, mainly thanks to growing smartphone and mobile internet adoption, Facebook can expect to see the region’s big five continue to grow while it develops a ‘long tail’ moving into new, low userbase markets which are seeing rapid growing rates.

With Facebook aiming towards its next user base landmark of one billion users, having hit 500 million last year, Asia is clearly a major focus. Though this is nothing new (as blogged here) and the statistics and data merely demonstrate this.

Southeast Asia is developing at a strong rate, however other markets with mature social media and internet habits are, for varying reasons, proving more difficult. Japan, China and South Korea are all examples although the latter is, as the image above shows, beginning to catch Facebook fever.

It seems logical therefore that Facebook will focus were the potential gains are in which means the company will be looking at Asia, amongst other regions.

Of course China has the potential to change Facebook’s destiny on its own, such are the sheer number of internet users and potential users within the country, however it is a hugely complicated market and a challenge which Facebook is clearly addressing as evident from CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent time in the country.

So while some in the west may be arguing that Facebook has reached its saturation point, it is clear there is much potential for new growth in other developing markets.