Report: Facebook Revenue Was $777 Million In 2009, Net Income $200 Million

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/05/report-facebook-revenue-was-777-million-in-2009-net-income-200-million/

by chailatte • 16 years ago

16 29 16 years ago

callmeed• 16 years ago

So, where the heck is this $50B valuation coming from? I know those are '09 numbers, but even with wicked growth, that's quite a P/E.

svlla• 16 years ago

it's called faith-based investing.

michaelty• 16 years ago

Brought to you by Goldman Sachs.

aheilbut3• 16 years ago

The user base is growing at something like 200% a year. In five years, they'll have over 32 billion users. Just figure out a way to make one or two dollars off each user...that can't be so hard, right?

rms2• 16 years ago

The same place as the magical $15B valuation Microsoft set way back when.

m104• 16 years ago

It's a scam of the pump-and-dump variety, plain and simple. Look forward a few investors and investment banks making out like bandits and the rest getting screwed.

alnayyir2• 16 years ago

Can anyone get profit/revenue to valuation ratios on pre-IPO Google so that we can do some more rational comparing?

michaelchisari2• 16 years ago

At it's highest, I recall Google's was around 100:1. This puts Facebook's at 250:1.

nano81• 16 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you're using (rumored) 2009 income numbers with the Jan. 2011 valuation in your calculation. Income surely would have changed since then.

grasshoper• 16 years ago

You're comparing their 2010 year-end valuation with their 2009 year-end net income...

In December 2009, Facebook repurchased shares at $25 for an implied valuation of $11 billion. That's a 55 P/E.

kondro5• 16 years ago

How would this be rational? Facebook is not Google. Google's primary market (search) is nothing like Facebook's (personal communication).

Pyrodogg• 16 years ago

Both of them market in advertising. The delivery method is different, but it's still advertising.

alnayyir2• 16 years ago

>more rational

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

Let's say that they have quadrupled that, so $3.2 B revenue, and that they have greatly reduced their operating expenses (new servers, etc.) - so let's say they are making 50% net income, which would be almost impossible - that is still at best-case scenario $1.6 B a year, which hardly justifies $50B .

Even the most optimistic growth targets are going to bump up against hard limits: people can't spend more than x hours a day online, there are maybe 5 billion users worldwide as a potential market.

Unless the CIA is going to pay them a couple billion a year for data mining access (CIA's VC arm was an early investor) since we have all so nicely classified ourselves and our social graphs for "TIA" purposes, I can't see the valuation sticking.

christophe971• 16 years ago

At least. Some numbers. NOW the debate is going to be fun, with some numbers to play with...

So let's see...

Google is valued at $195B, and had a profit of $6.5B in 2009. 6.5/195 => 0.033

Apple is valued at $306B, and had a profit of $14B in 2009. 14.0/306 => 0.045

Same ballpark.

Now...

Facebook is valued at $50B, and had a profit of $200MM in 2009. 0.2/50 => 0.004

Facebook over-valued in the long term ? Sure. In the short term ? It's the (speculative) market at work.

sandee• 16 years ago

The average of both Google and Apple = (0.033 + 0.045)/2 = 0.039

Assuming a profit of 500M over a revenue of 2B , the valuation should be = 0.5/0.039 = 12.82B

The valuation of Facebook is 3.9x over this, which does not look so bad !

spitfire• 16 years ago

So we find out the emperor has no clothes. Unsurprising.

JSig• 16 years ago

My place of employment currently allows users to surf Facebook, though it blocks many other sites. I wonder if the guys upstairs will one day pull the plug on FB when firing people is no longer an option to boost productivity. I wonder how much of a risk this scenario is to FB. There are a lot of un/der employed folks out there though.....

Report: Facebook Revenue Was $777 Million In 2009, Net Income $200 Million

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