With 2.2 million fans on social networking site Facebook, IPL powerhouse Mumbai Indians has raced ahead of all other franchisees in the virtual world.

Digital marketing agency Red Digital, who created and managed Mumbai Indians' social media presence, said in a release on Monday that the team has become the largest Indian sports brand in social media by having close to 2.2 million fans on Facebook.

The Sachin Tendulkar led team has over three times the number of fans compared to its closest competitor Chennai Superkings with 7.25 lakh fans on its unofficial fanpage and about 35,000 fans on its official fan page, the release said.

Chennai is followed by Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore with 5.7 lakhs and 5.05 lakh fans respectively.

Mumbai Indians is now the 112th biggest brand page on Facebook globally and is also ranked number 27 among all professional sports team pages globally, ahead of teams such as Manchester City, said Harsh Jain, Managing Director of Red Digital.

Aimed at creating an emotional and personal connect with cricket fanatics on the Mumbai Indians fan page, fans are kept abreast of the latest happenings in the world of cricket and personal lives of their favourite cricketers.

They are now targeting the 3 million mark by IPL 5.

According to a recent survey by Nielsen, social networking is taking up almost 22.7% of time spent on the web.

Facebook has more than 800 million users while micro-blogging site Twitter has over 145 million registered users.