Facebook hits 1 billion users, but shares struggle

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today said the site now has more than one billion active users.

The company's shares [NAS:FB] nudged up 0.54% today to $US21.95.

The social network is experimenting with new advertising models and has a limited pay-to-post trial in place for members who want to gain extra prominence.

But so far, with the company in "investment mode" and struggling to gain traction with any of its monetisation schemes, more users are not equalling more profit.

On July 27, Facebook reported a $US157 million second-quarter loss (and adjusted earinings of $US295 million after one-off employee stock allocations around its IPO) Revenue rose 32% against the year-ago quarter to $US1.18 billion.

Investors are not impressed by sheer membership numbers. Facebook shares have fallen 47.2% since its May IPO (see chart right).

A recent BBC report also raised questions about whether all Facebook accounts are real, and whether spam accounts exaggerated the reach of advertising campaigns on the social network.

One billion – key metrics

Facebook reached 1 billion monthly active users on September 14 at 12.45 PM Pacific time.

Since Facebook launched, we’ve seen:

·       Over 1.13 trillion likes since launch in February 2009

·       140.3 billion friend connections

·       219 billion photos uploaded

o   Data was pulled on 9/10/2012, and represents the total # of photos currently on this site – in other words, it excludes deleted photos.  If we wanted to include all photos ever uploaded, the estimate we have is 265 billion. Photo uploading launched fall 2005.

• 17 billion location-tagged posts, including check-ins

o   Includes location-tagged posts as well as check-ins. Data was pulled 9/10/2012, and represents total location-tagged posts & check-ins since launch of the product in August 2010

• 62.6 million songs have been played 22 billion times - that’s about 210,000 years of music

o   Data was pulled on 9/11/2012, and represents song plays since the launch of music-listening applications in September 2011

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 1B

·       The median age of the user is about 22

·       The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

·       Facebook now has 600M mobile users

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 500M users (July 2010)

·       The median age of the user at that time was about 23

·       Top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

·       Users signing up at this time now have an average of 305 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week we hit 100M (August 2008)

·       The median age of the user at that time was about 26

·       The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Chile, France, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

·       The user signing up at this time now has an average 334 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 50M users (October 2007)

·       The median age of the user signing up at this time was about 26

·       Top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Australia, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

·       Users signing up at this time now have an average of 321 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 25M users (January 2006)

• The median age of users signing up at that time was about 19
• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)
• Users who signed up at this time now have an average of 598 friends

(Source: Facebook)