Now that Facebook has applied to become a public company, they have to open their files and have shared with the public what is really happening behind closed doors. Here are some of the highlights that we found interesting.
Their net income earned in 2011 was billion dollars! Their total earnings were 3.7 billion, which means that almost a third was pure profit. This is the third year in a row that they have been profitable. I guess those ads on the side bar are really paying off!
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845 million people, as of December 2011, were active users on Facebook. What I find interesting is that Facebook only counts active users, and does not include the millions of accounts that were set up over the years and never updated again. Because they only count active users, it is fair to say that this is a very accurate picture of just how big Facebook has become and the impact it has on our world. Although Facebook has been wildly successful, they are quickly approaching a glass ceiling. There are only so many people in the world with regular access to the internet, so the number of people that are left to be reached is a dwindling.
This by far is the most astonishing number to me. There are 483 million daily active users. This means that slightly more than half of all active users check Facebook daily. Other than Google, I cannot think of another website that is visited this often by so many people. This type of power has the potential to influence the world on politics, consumerism, and business. If you are a business that has not created a Facebook page yet, you really need to reconsider. This amount of users and the consistency of return visitors cannot be easily rivaled anywhere else.
If you thought 845 million active users was a lot, just imagine 100 billion friendship connections. Facebook users are so connected with everyone else; it makes LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ look silly. All of these numbers factor into deciding Facebook’s true value in the stock market once it goes public. Stay tuned, we will post updates once Facebook goes public to keep you informed.
