Facebook won't deny it is sitting on huge mountain of cash Facebook has declined to comment on a report that suggested the dominant social network had already tucked away sales of $2.5bn for the first nine months of 2011. Gawker, citing a "well-placed" source, claimed to have its hands on juicy financial details about the privately-held company that is expected to go public next year …
I would guess it's from facebook coins and their gaming networks.
Facebook take a nice slice of every transaction in a game now (much to the chagrin of my dev friends), so there's a lot of money falling into their laps from games and apps. While I don't much like Facebook, I can happily admit that they know how to make a couple of quid.
Facebook Credits are also a pretty big stream of revenue. Look at how many games and apps people are addicted to on Facebook. However, I would venture that the lion's share of revenue for Facebook comes from advertising. Despite the relatively low conversion rates, companies are starting to rely more and more on Facebook for a lot of their marketing. Furthermore, companies are so desperate for traction on Facebook that there are now dozens of companies listed at http://www.buyfacebookfansreviews.com that do nothing other than 'sell' Facebook/Twitter fans, which is interesting in and of itself. Regardless, until these details about Facebook's revenue become known, I'm not sure how to accurately figure out their revenue split, but I'd bet that Ads and Credits are the main sources.
I doubt that anyone at Apple would consider that to be a huge pile of cash.
Credit to Facebook. It's a real company that has lots of customers and is genuinely quite profitable. Still, though, most of its valuation is based on optimistic estimates of the future. These may or may not happen. The tech industry has companies that generate a lot of cash now - Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle. Facebook isn't really one of those yet.
All it took was to fleece dingbat suckers for their private info in exchange for offering a few shitty games and a chance to know what your mates are up to every second of the day, then have the balls to flog it all off to the highest bidder from some scumbag ad company!
The 2009 results are significantly higher than some of the figures that Facebook had suggested earlier in 2009, as well as analysts' estimates that have appeared in various media reports.
Last July, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen said the company was on track to surpass $500 million in annual revenue for 2009. And in September, Facebook said that it had become free cash flow positive, meaning that the company was generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses as well as its capital spending needs.
Estimates in various media reports had previously pegged the company's 2009 revenue at $550 million to $700 million.
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