Some Facebook News: Big Revenue, Over 1.55 billion Users, Now Worth $306b/60.9tr Naira

Facebook released some good earnings figures yesterday in spite it numerous investments like the new data centre, internet.org programs among others. The social media giant posted an 11% increase in its third-quarter earnings. The full earning report was made public yesterday but the most important thing you need to know is that Facebook’s “aggressive” ad sales push is working. They recorded a revenue of $4.5b/896b Naira/459KES in the third quarter of this year alone.

“Third Quarter 2015 Other Financial Highlights

• Mobile advertising revenue– Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 78% of advertising revenue for the third quarter of 2015, up from 66% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2014.
• Capital expenditures– Capital expenditures for the third quarter of 2015 were $780 million.
• Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities– Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $15.83 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2015.
• Free cash flow– Free cash flow for the third quarter of 2015 was $1.41 billion.”

The news really got investors excited obviously because as of this afternoon, Facebook now had a market value bigger than General Electric. It is now worth $306b/60.9tr Naira/31.2tr KES   by Market capitalisation. The figure is up from the $250b value it was reportedly worth in just July. This puts Facebook in the fourth position after the Apple, Alphabet (The new Google parent company) and Microsoft.

Source: Venture Beat

This has been a good year for the company even as it now reports 1.55 billion users a figure which was 1.49 billion as at July this year. Facebook’s WhatsApp now has over 900 million users as opposed to the 800 million in the same period. See chart below.

Latest Facebook Numbers, November 2015

Facebook Numbers, July 2015

For a company that’s a little over 11 years, these figures are quite good.