Member Article

Facebook sees £100m loss after shareholder payout

Facebook has made a £100 million loss on payments to shareholders in the first results since the social network listed on the stock market in May.

Costs and expenses during Q2 nearly quadrupled, up 295% to $1.93 billion from the same period in 2011. However, excluding staff share schemes Facebook would have made profits of $295 million, in comparison with $240 million profit over the same period last year.

This increase was driven primarily by “share based compensation expense”. However, some commentators believe that the increased revenue can be attributed to the media hype surrounding the company’s stock market share same.

Monthly active users have risen by 29% on the same period last year to 955 million, although
the validity of this figure has been questioned given high levels of bogus profiles on the site.

Mobile users have also risen by 67% to 543 million, although Facebook have yet to decipher how they will make money from this.

Facebook is now making less money per individual members as it becomes increasingly difficult to generate revenue from advertising.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .