Facebook-IPO

Zurück zum Facebook-IPO-Report: Andrew Ross Sorkin stellt im Dealbook-Blog der New York Times die Vermutung an, dass Facebooks offizielle aktive Nutzerzahlen zu hoch sind, weil Facebook auch Nutzer mitzählt, die gar nicht Facebook selbst besuchen und vielleicht nur ‚Like‘ auf einer Website anklicken. Diese Nutzer sehen dann zum Beispiel keine Werbung auf Facebook. Sorkin:

In other words, every time you press the “Like” button on NFL.com, for example, you’re an “active user” of Facebook. Perhaps you share a Twitter message on your Facebook account? That would make you an active Facebook user, too. Have you ever shared music on Spotify with a friend? You’re an active Facebook user. If you’ve logged into Huffington Post using your Facebook account and left a comment on the site — and your comment was automatically shared on Facebook — you, too, are an “active user” even though you’ve never actually spent any time on facebook.com.

Nachdem Facebook sein SEC-Filing für den anstehenden Börsengang eingereicht hat, kann man endlich einsehen, wie sich das Social Network wirtschaftllich entwickelt hat. Eine der bisher besseren Analysen kommt von Henry Blodget:

Specifically, Facebook is nearly a $4 billion company with nearly a 50 percent operating profit margin growing at better than 75 perecent per year. And, 7 years after its founding in a college dorm room, it is used by about 1/7th of the world’s population.

That is an awesome business, no matter how you look at it. And it’s worth a ton of money.

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Based on Facebook’s size, growth rate, and profitability, a 10X-15X revenue multiple is probably fair.  So that would give you a „fair value“ range of ~$40 billion to $60 billion based on last year’s revenue. Looking forward, you’d get $55-$80 billion based on a reasonable projection for this year’s revenue ($5-$5.5 billion) and $70-$100 billion based on a 2013 revenue estimate ($7 billion).