Facebook is making an absurd amount of money. In the first half of this year, the social network has reportedly earned nearly $500 million on $1.6 billion in revenue, according to Reuters. That allegedly equates to more than double what the company made during the same period last year.
The information comes via an anonymous source, who asked to remain nameless because the Facebook, a privately held company, does not disclose its financial data.
Financial data given to potential investors from Goldman Sachs show that Facebook earned $355 million in net income during the first nine months of 2010, with a total of $1.2 billion in revenue.
Current valuations for Facebook currently hold around $80 billion in private markets. The company is expected to go public sometime next year.
While doubling your revenue year-over-year is no small feat, some say these alleged numbers fall short of earlier financial predictions for the company, which could mean growth is slowing for the giant of Palo Alto.
As Business Insider reports, a source in April said that Facebook could earn up to $4 billion in revenue by the end of this year, and make $2 billion in earnings. If the leaked earnings data are correct, that would put Facebook substantially behind the needed pace to reach those numbers.
Still, it’s clear that Facebook, which recently surpassed 750 million users worldwide, is doing just fine. And these new numbers are entirely unconfirmed by the company, so wise investors will surely take the news with a few grains of a select flavor enhancer.
So, how did Facebook, a free service, earn such an a staggering amount of loot? Why, advertising, of course!
As Venture Beat points out, the presumed surge in revenue may be attributed to an increased amount of business from daily deals giants, Groupon and LivingSocial, which have reportedly spent truckloads of dollars on Facebook ads.
Unfortunately, we won’t likely know the truth of Facebook’s bank account until the company does, finally, go public, which will force them to disclose their financial records with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Luckily, we’ll be able to just hang out on Facebook more while we wait for that to happen.
