25 August 2010 | Author: J. Morton News Editor

Market speculates Facebook is worth £21.4bn

There's no doubt that Facebook has made a serious cultural impact - with over half a billion users, there's hardly a competing website that touches it. However, the market value of such a broad-reaching service reinforces its powerful status as well, and has recently been speculated at $33 billion (£21.4 billion).

Shares in the company, which is privately held, trade in the secondary market at $76 a piece, leading to the multi-billion pound overall assessment. Share in the Big Blue F have more than doubled since January this year, meaning that, despite privacy woes and a spate of bad press, the company is moving ever forward.

According to research firm eMarketer, the social networking champ expects to pull in nearly $1.285 billion in advertising revenues in 2010, with future profits tipped at $1.76 billion for 2011. These figures all have the long-standing rumours that CEO Mark Zuckerberg may go public in coming years swirling about them, sparking industry speculation.

While secondary market trading can often inflate the appearance of a company's worth, a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook cost Microsoft $240 million, valuing the company at £15 billion in 2007.

Analysts suggest that, if Facebook does go public, major tech companies should be fighting for a stake in the social network.

"If I was on the board of either Microsoft or Apple, I would seriously consider bidding for Facebook," said Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView.

"Microsoft could use Facebook as a portal for all their cloud services. They could include MS Office, and a prominent Bing search box.

"Apple popularised the app, and Facebook is the most used app of all. Both Facebook and Apple apps bypass Google's main revenue stream - sponsored search. Google is the company with the most to fear right now."

Home | Careers | RSS | Contact Us | Newsletter

International sites: