Revenues double at Facebook, says source

Facebook's first half revenue has nearly doubled to $1.6bn, despite the advent of new rivals like Google+. Net income for the half was almost $500m, a source told Reuters, adding that they did not want to be named because privately-held Facebook doesn't have to tell anyone what it makes. The results can only help any …

[Anonymous Coward]

how does that work

With net income of $500m for the half, that makes about $1bn for the whole year. For most companies that would give a value of $20bn at most - do people really think Facebook is that big a deal that it's worth 80 times profit?

[5.antiago]

Sigh

Just so long as we're not expected to bail out any banks when the bubble bursts...

[Malcom Ryder 1]

to big to fail?

Are you suggesting we bail out Facebook because its to big to fail?

[Tom Reg]

The $500m is an intentional leak, and likely overstated

These are Goldman Sachs spinners out to sell the company. Since Facebook is privately held, they can leak any 'info' they want. I'd bet the revenue is closer to being correct, but the real net income - profit is actually much much lower the advert (leak) that they published. The $500m income is likely one of those non GAAP accounting trick numbers.

They have 750 Million users, and they get $4 revenue per user on average per year? They have horrible click through rates (see the wiki article 400 per million) on ads, for instance. I for instance found an article claiming that at 300 m users they were 'break even'. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2009/09/16/tech-facebook-300-million-users.html

Big brother for the Oinon ONN news report:

http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/