Facebook's IPO papers have revealed the company's financial records for the first time, with the its 2011 revenue sitting at $US3.7 billion.
Facebook's 2011 revenue is significantly up from the previous year which was $US1.9 billion, itself more than double 2009's revenue of $777 million.
Facebook today confirmed its widely-anticipated initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to value the social media company at $100 billion.
Rumours have been circulating since last year of Facebook's mammoth impending IPO, with US publications reporting this week the company would file papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week.
In the papers filed to the SEC, founder, chief executive and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, said: “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected. We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do.
“There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.”
Facebook also wrote about the company's advertising services: “We believe that the shift to a more social web creates new opportunities for businesses to engage with interested customers. Any brand or business can create a Facebook Page to stimulate an ongoing dialog with our users. Advertisers’ objectives range from building long-term brand awareness to stimulating an immediate purchase.
“We offer advertising solutions that are designed to be more engaging and relevant for users in order to help advertisers better achieve their goals. Facebook’s combination of reach, relevance, social context, and engagement gives advertisers enhanced opportunities to generate brand awareness and affiliation, while also creating new ways to generate near-term demand for their products from consumers likely to have purchase intent.
“According to an industry source, total worldwide advertising spending in 2010 was $588 billion. Our addressable market opportunity includes portions of many existing advertising markets, including the traditional offline branded advertising, online display advertising,online performance-based advertising, and mobile advertising markets.”
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