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As Facebook files for historic IPO, India is its No 2 base, after US
India has emerged as Facebook’s second most important country, after the US, even as the social media behemoth unveiled plans for a historic IPO that could value the network between $75 billion and $100 billion and raise as much as $10 billion.
Newly-released figures revealed that India with 43.5 million users has emerged as the network’s second most important population base, after the US with 152.5 million members. India has just about outpaced Indonesia (43.1 million) to take the second slot.
In what promises to be one of the biggest US stock market debuts, Facebook’s shares will begin selling this spring. The company’s financials show as much as $1 billion profit last year from $3.71 billion in revenues, mostly from advertising.
Mark Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old founder and CEO, will retain effective control of Facebook, holding about a third of the company’s shares but nearly 57 per cent of the voting power, said the filing.
“Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to potential investors. “We hope to improve how people connect to businesses and the economy….We hope to change how people relate to their governments and social institutions.”
Figures made public on Wednesday pointed to new strides in Facebook’s astounding reach. “We had 845 million monthly active users at the end of December 2011. Approximately 80% of our monthly active users are outside the US and Canada. We had 483 million daily active users on average in December 2011,” said the California-based network that is now available in more than 70 languages.
“In just eight years, Facebook has become the world’s social bazaar, where friends gossip, play games and swap 250 million photos per day. It has also emerged as a potent political tool, helping to topple regimes across the Middle East last year,” wrote the Wall Street Journal.
As for its competition, Facebook said: “We compete broadly with Google’s social networking offerings, including Google+, and also with other, largely regional, social networks that have strong positions in particular countries, including Cyworld in Korea, Mixi in Japan, Orkut (owned by Google) in Brazil and India, and vKontakte in Russia.”
“We continue to focus on growing our user base across all geographies, including relatively less-penetrated, large markets such as Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. We intend to grow our user base by continuing our marketing and user acquisition efforts and enhancing our products, including mobile apps, in order to make Facebook more accessible and useful,” it said.
India has emerged as Facebook’s second most important country, after the US, even as the social media behemoth unveiled plans for a historic IPO that could value the network between $75 billion and $100 billion and raise as much as $10 billion.
Newly-released figures revealed that India with 43.5 million users has emerged as the network’s second most important population base, after the US with 152.5 million members. India has just about outpaced Indonesia (43.1 million) to take the second slot.
In what promises to be one of the biggest US stock market debuts, Facebook’s shares will begin selling this spring. The company’s financials show as much as $1 billion profit last year from $3.71 billion in revenues, mostly from advertising.
Mark Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old founder and CEO, will retain effective control of Facebook, holding about a third of the company’s shares but nearly 57 per cent of the voting power, said the filing.
“Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to potential investors. “We hope to improve how people connect to businesses and the economy….We hope to change how people relate to their governments and social institutions.”
Figures made public on Wednesday pointed to new strides in Facebook’s astounding reach. “We had 845 million monthly active users at the end of December 2011. Approximately 80% of our monthly active users are outside the US and Canada. We had 483 million daily active users on average in December 2011,” said the California-based network that is now available in more than 70 languages.
“In just eight years, Facebook has become the world’s social bazaar, where friends gossip, play games and swap 250 million photos per day. It has also emerged as a potent political tool, helping to topple regimes across the Middle East last year,” wrote the Wall Street Journal.
As for its competition, Facebook said: “We compete broadly with Google’s social networking offerings, including Google+, and also with other, largely regional, social networks that have strong positions in particular countries, including Cyworld in Korea, Mixi in Japan, Orkut (owned by Google) in Brazil and India, and vKontakte in Russia.”
“We continue to focus on growing our user base across all geographies, including relatively less-penetrated, large markets such as Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. We intend to grow our user base by continuing our marketing and user acquisition efforts and enhancing our products, including mobile apps, in order to make Facebook more accessible and useful,” it said.
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