Facebook announced this week that they have hit a major milestone: 1 billion active users on Facebook. The companies CEO, Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement Thursday Morning. The growth that the company has seen since it was created is astonishing. In a little over 2 years, Facebook has doubled their user base, from 500 million to 1 billion. In recent years there has been new competitors that have come along, it is amazing that Facebook has still been able to add users as fast as they have.
It is also interesting to look into the trends in user adoption. The level of new user adoption in the United States and Europe has all by dried up. Counties such as China, Japan, Brazil and Russia are the places where the company has received their tremendous growth. They are also predicting that new user adoption in these countries will continue to be strong for the foreseeable future.
Even though Facebook sees most of their growth potential outside of the United States, they are still very focused on the current user base in the United States. When looking at the companies financials, the income is 6-7 times larger per user in the United States then it is anyone where. With the current downward pressure on the company’s stock and the tremendous pressure they are under to increase revenues and profits, it will be essential to keep a lot of focus in the United States.
The company is also looking for growth opportunities in the mobile arena. Cisco has estimated that by the end of this year, there will be more mobile devices in the world than people. Facebook currently has mobile applications for its users but they receive very little income from the apps. In order to continue their growth and increase profits, it will be important to grow this part of the business.
This week marked a big milestone for Facebook. It gave the company an opportunity to see how far the company has come in such a short time while reminding the company all of the challenges that still remain in front of them.
-SMF
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