Facebook is among the fastest growing companies in the U.S., and has made its place in Fortune’s list at position No.10. The social network, which has been trading publicly for the past three years, has become eligible for this honor for the first time. Facebook saw its revenue grow by 51% in that span.
Mobile transition carried the growth
Facebook, which went public in 2012, was already late to mobile. No mobile revenue was made by the company at the time of its IPO. The company was profitable then as well, but it was suffering from the lack of mobile issues, and therefore, investors were hesitant. But the transition made by the company to mobile advertising was quite remarkable, and this is the prime reason behind its spectacular success.
For the transition, the firm made several major improvements to its mobile app, and also sold ads aggressively over the improved platform. The social networking giant now derives 76% of its total revenue from mobile advertising. eMarketer informs that in terms of mobile advertising market share, Facebook is even bigger than the search giant Google.
Along with rapid revenue growth, its stock has also risen 150% in past three years. It is currently trading at around $95 per share with a price to earnings ratio of nearly 100. This is quite rich even for a fast-growing tech company.
How will Facebook push into its next phase of growth?
Facebook has a massive 1.5 billion monthly active user base, but this will not grow forever and will reach saturation at some point. Therefore, to add more users the company is now targeting people in areas where the Internet is not easily available. For this, it has come up with a project named Internet.org whose aim is to bring Internet to the remotest parts of the world.
The social media firm also needs to sell more expensive ads if it wishes to retain the same pace of revenue growth. Therefore, it is making a significant push into video ads, which command a premium over regular display ads. The firm made several notable acquisitions such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus VR, and also introduced its standalone chat app Facebook Messenger. It should start monetizing these soon. Each of these Facebook products, except Oculus VR, already has a massive audience of its own.
