7 Startling Numbers We Now Know About Facebook
Filed under: Employment & Careers, Entrepreneurship
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool
Now that Facebook has filed its paperwork to go public, we're getting our first real glimpse at the inner workings of the world's largest social networking website.
It's pretty impressive.
Let's set aside the potential for Facebook's valuation to get out hand. We're still several weeks away from actual deal pricing and retail investor reactions. What we have now are the company's fundamentals.
Let's dive into a few of the numbers that may surprise you.
483 million: There are 483 million daily active users. In other words, more than half of Facebook's users are on the website in any given day. The key point here is that while active monthly users have climbed by 39% over the past year, daily active users have increased by 48%. In other words, Facebook continues to get stickier with consumers.
100 billion: There are 100 billion -- yes, billion -- friendship connections on the website. The next time someone brings up Google+, Pinterest, or whatever the Facebook killer flavor of the week may be, realizing that undoing the connections that Facebook has already secured is far easier said than done.
$3.7 billion: That's the amount of revenue Facebook generated last year. You didn't think a "free" website could generate that kind of money? Well, Facebook is the runaway leader in display advertising, and it's starting to make a decent amount of money through the payment platform that app developers are using. A neat thing about the revenue is that it's 88% ahead of 2010's top-line sum. Remember from two paragraphs ago how the number of monthly active users grew by 39% over the past year. Relative to that, an 88% growth in revenue means Facebook is milking more money out of every user.
$1 billion: Facebook generated net income of $1 billion in 2011, and it has been profitable in each of the past three years. Divide $1 billion into $3.7 billion and you get net margins of 27%. That's deeply impressive for a company that was born in a Harvard dorm room not too long ago.
12%: No company has embraced social gaming and its potential on Facebook the way Zynga (ZNGA) has. A beefy 12% of Facebook's revenue comes from Zynga cutting it in on a piece of its gaming revenue action.
$3.9 billion: Facebook had $3.9 billion in cash at the end of 2011. Its working capital clocked in at $3.7 billion. Obviously, Facebook isn't going public because it needs to raise money. It just needs to give its early investors a way out.
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"$3.9 billion: Facebook had $3.9 billion in cash at the end of 2011. Its working capital clocked in at $3.7 billion. Obviously, Facebook isn't going public because it needs to raise money. It just needs to give its early investors a way out."
That last paragraph explains it all, especially the last sentence. With over $3B in the bank they could pay themselves lots of dividends. They could also buy out the shareholders that want out and keep all those future profits for themselves. But then again if those other shareholders want more than what its worth and the other shareholders know it then selling public is their best way out.
Is it any wonder that facebook has millions of registered users when all that the software seems to be is an email-contact-list importer that constantly forces everyone to import all their email contacts. Other than importing contacts navigating facebook is a joke, definitely not user friendly. I remember my first toaster, I used it day in and day out, for weeks and months, eventually the novelty wore out and I hardly use a toaster now. Facebook is at its peak as a noveltly with quite a large percentage of the world population, Its already worn out on me and I hardly even used it.
who gives a flying rat's ass. Why don't people read a good book have some company over and communicate in a natural way. Believe me the Devil is at work here and doing quite nicely, but the day shall come when Facebook like Eddie Sedgwick shall crumble like a cigarette ash because nothing comes to nothing and I aught to know being that I apparently am nothing as well equally incapable of seeing the nothing from whence I've come nor the infinite that I shall surely and blessedly be engulfed and if you've read this then you deserve Facebook.
Nurse Daphne
what a sad lack of journalistic ability . what is shocking about facebooks numbers?
what is startling about the numbers? why doesn;t the wallet pop editor growup and
start writing like an educated journalist instead of starry-eyed twit!
Well;;;; Thats done it,, And here is me thinking that I was a member of an elite group of people that only numberd in about a million or so, what a come down to know that I am not as special as I once thought.............LOL
February 03 2012 at 12:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyhorror stories....? wow ive been on there since '07 and nothin has ever been horrific as far as i can see. rule number 1 never spell your name totally correct on their and you will be good!!!!!!!
February 03 2012 at 4:48 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWell they don't have and will not get any of my money. I'm not on facebook nor any other site.Too many horror stories.
February 03 2012 at 4:04 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply
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