Facebook is This Big and Has a Lot More Potential

Facebook is This Big and Has a Lot More Potential:

An attempt to compare the size and strength of Facebook to know its enormity and potential.

Facebook, the social networking website, has now become almost a kind of necessity for millions of web users.

There is even a forward mail floating around which says something like – “Facebook is the third most populous place after China and India.” Yes this is true infact. Take a look at the infographic below :

Facebook by numbers infographic

The most interesting part to be observed above is the estimated market capitalization of Facebook ($90bn) and the number of employees in Facebook. But however it can be said that even the users of Facebook can be considered effectively as the employees of FB as they keep contributing content to their ‘friends’. So, as the users keep increasing the potential of FB keeps increasing and now you can guess where Facebook can be in the future ? (creating a monopoly in social networks ??)

Note: Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the number of outstanding shares of a company by the current market price of one share. So, it is an estimate of the size of the company.

Ad revenue

Almost 90% of Facebook’s revenues come from advertising. The other sources include revenue from Facebook credits and other sources.

In 2011, the revenue through advertising rose by 104% (more than doubled) to $3.8 billion (this was lower than the estimates). A look at the following chart gives us more idea about the past and future estimates. (source: emarketing)

Facebook revenue chart

Do notice that as Facebook keeps expanding its users base in the east in countries like India , China etc., its ad revenue share from these countries keeps increasing and so there is more in store for Facebook to expand its revenue. Also Facebook is trying to diversify the sources of revenue and not just depend on advertising revenue.

[A detailed version of this article has appeared on The Netizens as Facebook by numbers]