Will Facebook become one of the most profitable companies in the world?

http://namesake.com/conversation/9b3fe6d6-54ae-11e0-ae74-12313f014066

by Thomas_Kincaid • 15 years ago

17 23 15 years ago

faragon• 15 years ago

Shorm-term, may be. Mid-term, may be. Long-term, I hope not.

scottieh2• 15 years ago

Yes -- when a single organization owns the connections, interests and geographical data of 600 million people -- it's inevitable.

No other entity has amassed this amount of data before.

olivercameron5• 15 years ago

Why is it inevitable? They already run an ad network and their revenue's are nowhere near, for example, Google's. How else can they monetize this data?

scottieh2• 15 years ago

They've barely scratched the surface. And it's not just an ad network...

- virtual currency - daily deals - search integrated directly into the experience

and that's just off the top of my head

easp• 15 years ago

How many of those 600M monthly active users are fake accounts created by webcam and dating site spammers, and mafia wars addicts?

mviamari• 15 years ago

if their ARPU has as much potential for growth as mentioned in the first comment of the conversation, they could easily surpass Google.

olivercameron5• 15 years ago

I highly doubt they can get near the top 10. They'd first have to battle their way past the heavy weight technology companies, then the banking giants, then Wal-Mart and finally the the ridiculously lucrative oil companies (source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/perfor...).

They have to figure out how to monetize a lot more $ per user to be very profitable in the long term.

marcamillion6• 15 years ago

One of the most profitable, perhaps...but I predict that if Dropbox stays independent - it will easily become the most profitable.

olivercameron5• 15 years ago

In the tech industry, maybe, but in the world?

marcamillion6• 15 years ago

Oh absolutely. Dropbox is reaching the point where now my father and mother use it. It hasn't reached Facebook levels yet (by that I mean, my grandmother ;)), but it is getting there.

But with each incremental user, Dropbox's value increases in an e^x fashion.

For more on why I think so, here is a more detailed breakdown: http://marcgayle.com/how-dropbox-is-printing-money

There is no reason that Dropbox's growth will slow any time soon. It is a fabulous product, and has the referral system built-in.

It's the closest elixir to magic I have seen in recent times.

noelchurchill• 15 years ago

Dropbox adds little value to my life. Unless the company or technology evolves in ways I can't foresee, I would never pay for it.

Predicting it will be the most profitable company in the world sounds absurd to me. But that's just me.

sorbus2• 15 years ago

Dropbox is a killer application if you have multiple computers or don't want to care about keeping backups. It's completely removed my need for flash drives, caring about which computer I have documents on, and so forth. I wouldn't underestimate that; I recall hearing that they've hit $100M/year in profits[1], and I expect that they've got quite a ways to grow. However, saying that they'll be the most profitable company in the world doesn't make sense to me - that would just take too much growth to be realistic.

For some context, the most profitable company in the world in 2010 was Gazprom[1], the largest exporter of natural gas in the world, with 24,555.7 million.

EDIT: Gazprom was the most profitable in 2009, not 2010, as pointed out below.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-revenue-2011-3

[2] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/perfor...

gnaritas• 15 years ago

No.

Ainab• 15 years ago

It is unlikely they will ever get close to energy (oil) companies. and by the way they need to IPO so that we can know what their revenue and expenses are.

Will Facebook become one of the most profitable companies in the world?

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