Facebook Now And Then: How The Social Media Giant Has Grown In 15 Years

Facebook, Inc. FB has become an integral part of our lives and a force of nature in social media. As the platform marks 15 years of existence, here's a look back at how it has progressed from the viewpoint of financial and user metrics.

Launched Feb. 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his classmate Eduardo Saverin as a private network for college students at Harvard, Facebook was made available to the public in September 2006. The most popular and widely used "like" feature was introduced in February 2009.

The company went public in May 2012, offering 421.23 million shares at a price of $38 each.

Source: Officetimeline.com

Revenue

Facebook reported revenue of $55.84 billion for 2018, with $55.01 billion accounted for by ad revenue, a 37-percent year-over-year increase. 

Mobile comprised 93 percent of Facebook's ad revenue in 2018.

As per Facebook's S-1 registration filing with the SEC for its IPO, it reported revenue of $777 million in 2009. That translates to a roughly 7,000-percent revenue increase between 2009 and 2018.

In 2010, the company hit $1 billion in revenue, reporting $1.974 billion for the year.

Source: Macrotrends

Earnings

Facebook made a profit of 10 cents per share in 2009, which increased to 28 cents in 2010 and 46 cents in 2011.

For 2018, the company reported EPS of $7.57, up 40 percent from $5.39 in 2017.

Users Statistics

Facebook daily active users stood at 1.52 billion at the end of 2018, a 9-percent jump over 2017. In March 2009, the platform had 92 million DAUs.

DAU is a measure of user engagement and is a count of registered Facebook users who logged in and visited Facebook through its website or a mobile device or used its Messenger application on a given day.

Of the 1.52 billion DAUs, 38 percent were from Asia, 16 percent from Europe, 12 percent from the U.S. and 31.4 percent from the rest of the world.

Source: Facebook 10-K filing

Monthly Active Users, or MAUs, which counts Facebook users who logged in and visited Facebook through its website or a mobile device or used its Messenger in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement, increased from 197 million in March 2009 to 2.32 billion at the end of 2018.

Source: Facebook 10-K filing

Average revenue per user was $7.37 in the fourth quarter of 2018. 

Employee Count

From 2,127 full-time employees at the end of 2010, Facebook had 35,587 staffers in 2018.

"We plan to continue to hire a number of employees and contractors in order to address various safety, security and content review initiatives," Facebook said in its recent 10-K filing.

The Stock

After ending the debut session at $38.23 on May 18, 2012, Facebook's shares closed above $100 for the first time in October 2015.

The stock ended Friday's session at $165.71, with a market capitalization of $476.22 million.

Notwithstanding recent setbacks over privacy issues, Facebook has grown stronger over the years.

Instagram, according to analysts, is an important growth driver. Facebook bought the platform in September 2012. Although Facebook does not break down Instagram numbers, the platform may have contributed $8 billion in revenue in 2018, Bloomberg reported, citing eMarketer.

After the scandal-driven and broader market turbulence in 2018, Facebook seems to be rebounding, and the sell-side is optimistic, with the average analyst recommendation being a "Buy" and an average price target of $184.67.

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