Facebook’s IPO: Numbers & Charts

The social media giant Facebook is finally opening its doors to public investors. In the most enthusiastically awaited stock market flotation for years, Facebook eventually began the process of its initial public offering (IPO). Facebook, the world’s largest social-networking site, is in quest of raising $5 billion in the IPO. That is about half the amount that analysts had speculated, but the figure could rise.

On February 1st the social network announced plans for an initial public offering (IPO) which would give it an estimated market capitalization between $75 billion and $100 billion - similar to that of fast-food chain McDonald’s. A $100 billion price tag would hardly be cheap, but other tech giants are worth more: Google’s market capitalization is $190 billion, Microsoft’s $250 billion and Apple’s $425 billion.

People are now spending far more time on Facebook than on rival web services such as Google

For the first time Facebook revealed some financial data in its filing:

• Revenue last year was $3.7 billion, up from $2 billion in 2010 
• Profit was $1 billion, up from $606m

The social network employs only around 3,000 staff, giving it average revenue of $1.2m per person in 2011. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder and CEO, owns a 28% stake, which will be worth about $28 billion.