Reuters is reporting that Facebook’s revenue for the first half of 2011 has doubled to $1.6 billion. Net income for the same period is placed at $500 million. They’re a privately-held company so no one can force them to confirm the report.
We can only assume, just like everyone, that much of the $1.6 billion must have come from advertising as the social network is said to be responsible for one third of Internet advertising impressions in the US alone this June. That figure is more than the combined total of Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and AOL, according to comScore.
It should not be downplayed as well that the company gets a 30 percent cut of sales of virtual goods in social games like FarmVille.
In July this year, Kevin Ryan, the chief executive of DoubleClick, forecasted that Facebook will generate $1 billion in revenue from social gaming alone this year. It was also that same month that David Fisher, vice president of Facebook’s advertising and global operations told Businessweek that their ad business remains on the growth path:
“We have hundreds of thousands of advertisers around the world– that continues to grow. We continue to feel good about where we are. We’re constantly testing new ad formats. We’ve found, frankly, that users are getting value and advertisers getting value in putting more ads in.”
Investor’s interest on Facebook has pushed its valuation to $80 billion. Early this year, it was reported that the company is preparing for a $100 billion initial public offering (IPO). This amount could easily dwarf Google’s $23 billion IPO in 2004. We can only wait though, as again, no one’s confirming.
