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Facebook's Revenues Leaked
eldavojohn writes "Think that Goldman Sachs spent too much on Facebook with the $450 million investment? Well, a very wealthy customer of theirs decided to leak Facebook's financials yesterday after receiving it over lunch: '... during the first nine months of 2010, Facebook generated $1.2 billion in revenue. Net income at the firm was $355 million. The financial statements were not audited and offered little detail about how Facebook generates its revenue, said the source, who did not want to be identified because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement.' Expanding this nine-month period to a year yields $1.6 billion in revenue and under half a billion in income. Given that, should Facebook be valuated at $50 billion?"
Reader frontwave adds news that other social tech companies are hurriedly considering IPOs of their own.
Of course. Peoples personal information always has a market value.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Is Facebook a viable long term business model ?
All internet companies are butterflies. Something newer and hipper will come around.
Facebook too will one day go the way of MySpace and LiveJournal.
(And Google will one day go the way of Altavista, Hotbot and ftpsearch.ntnu.no)
What would be the percentage of "Facebook penetration" amongst the /. users ?
If it's penetration you're after, Craigslist is far superior.
That's what she said?
(Yes, I will go to hell for this...)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
The only explanation for the valuation is the belief that Facebook will be more valuable over the long term than it is now. Unless you think Facebook will still be a wise investment in 15 years, the valuation is a little bonkers. In the technology space, this seems to contradict observed experiences -- a decade is a very, very long time.
This is particularly so with something as ephemeral as a community-powered product. Diaspora was a disappointment, true. But do you really think no credible Facebook alternative will come along in ten years? And once that crowd leaves, exactly what is Facebook's value? Some PHP? Server farms? Yeah, ok.
This report makes the $50 billion look to high - that's a P/E of over 100 - which is really high even for tech stocks.
So exactly the opposite...
You're not the customer. You're the product.
How silly! EVERY company loses favor. Styles change, customs change, companies bet on the wrong horse or stay the course and stagnate.
EVERY company loses favor sooner or later. Facebook is not going to be the first immortal company.
Infuriate left and right
They have 500 million viewers, yet they ONLY make $1.6 billion from them?
Conde Naste makes $4 billion a year from just a few million viewers.
There are some fundamental problems with Facebook that would prevent major-brand advertisements from purchasing ads there, namely, that it's a viewer-driven site - content comes from the viewers, which is a big no-no among advertisers.
Why would a major advertiser, like Calvin Klein, place their high-end ad right next to some picture of a college kids barf? They would much rather have their ads placed next to a picture of Lara Stone.
THIS is why Facebook only pulls in a few cents CPM, whereas an ad in Vogue goes for $150 CPM.
The more democratic you get, the less interesting you are to advertisers.
I think we can both agree that this line of humor should never have begun.