Will you still 'Like' Facebook tomorrow?

Social networking site boasts strong revenue as it turns 10, even as some predict its end


Facebook is the world's largest social network. It has 1.23 billion active users, and one in five pages viewed on the Internet is a Facebook page. But Facebook is facing competition and must keep on reinventing itself as younger teens turn to other social platforms as their primary hub.
 

New York - Last Friday, Facebook shares soared to a new record, an early birthday present for a company that turns 10 on Tuesday.

Wall Street rewarded the world's largest social network for its latest and best quarterly results by sending its stock up 15 per cent to US$62.57. Facebook announced last Thursday that revenue swelled 63 per cent from the year-ago period to US$2.59 billion (S$3.3 billion), above the US$2.35 billion analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected. Net profit rose to US$523 million from US$64 million.

Most important for investors were the numbers showing that over half of Facebook's advertising revenue - 53 per cent to be exact - now comes from mobile devices.
There are other reasons to celebrate.

Background story

FACEBOOK'S FIVE FOUNDERS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

• Mark Zuckerberg, 29

Facebook chairman and chief executive and the only one still at the company. Added US$3.2 billion (S$4.1 billion) to his net worth when Facebook shares closed at a record high last Thursday, elevating his fortune to US$27.4 billion, according to
the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. When he had US$24 billion, he was the 26th wealthiest person in the world.

• Eduardo Saverin, 31

Mr Zuckerberg's one-time best friend, Mr Saverin, ended up on the losing side of a power struggle with Mr Zuckerberg. Famously sued Mr Zuckerberg and the two reached a settlement. After Facebook went public, he earned an estimated US$2 billion, renounced his United States citizenship, and moved to Singapore. He is a major investor in technology start-ups.

• Dustin Moskovitz, 29

Youngest billionaire on earth, being eight days younger than Mr Zuckerberg. Was both vice-president of engineering and chief technology officer.
Left Facebook in 2008 to start Asana, a company that builds project management software.

• Chris Hughes, 30

A literature major, he is Facebook's first spokesman. Left in 2008 to run Mr Barack Obama's online campaign for
US President. Bought and relaunched the 98-year-old New Republic magazine.

• Andrew McCollum, 34

Designed the original Facebook logo and worked on a side project with Mr Zuckerberg, Wirehog for file-sharing. Co-founded resume-creating tool JobSpice. Currently an entrepreneur-in-residence at the venture capital company NEA.

• Most unlikely Facebook multi-millionaire

Chinese-American painter and graffiti artist David Choe, 37, was hired in 2011 to create murals at Facebook's new Silicon Valley headquarters. He opted to get paid in stock, despite believing that Facebook was "ridiculous". A year later, that 0.2 per cent of stock he held was valued at US$170 million when Facebook went public.
Sources: whoownsfacebook.com, Bloomberg