THE WORLD’S largest social networking site, Facebook, attracted 100 million new members in the last six months bringing the number of regular users to 300 million.
Reaching the milestone means that Facebook is now generating enough money to cover its operating expenses as well as the capital spending required to maintain the technology powering its rapidly expanding service.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post on the company website that Facebook reached its goal of being cash-flow positive in the quarter ending in June. It had previously projected reaching the target sometime in 2010.
The company said it hopes to announce that it has more than one million Irish members in the coming weeks and that recent translations of the website into Spanish, French and German are rapidly attracting new users to the fold.
“We announced last year that we had 100 million users, now we have 300 million. It has surpassed everyone’s expectations,” said Colm Long, head of online operations for Facebook in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“These 300 million users have used the site in the last 30 days and 50 per cent come back every day, which is really staggering.
“We would love to do something to mark reaching one million Irish users and we expect that to happen in the next few weeks.”
Mr Long said, on average, users spend 25-30 minutes on the site each time they visit and that 55 per cent of those frequenting the site are female.
He said that, in spite of public perception, Facebook is no longer just a hangout for teenagers and students.
“The 35-plus age range is the fastest growing one,” he said. “We thought this was interesting as people seem to think Facebook is for 18-year-olds and younger.
“About a third of our users are from the 18-25 range, another third are 25-35 and the last third is 35 and above, which we are really pleased about.”
In May, Facebook announced a $200 million investment from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) in a deal that valued the company’s preferred shares at $10 billion (€6.7 billion).
DST valued Facebook’s common shares at $6.5 billion in a subsequent deal to purchase shares from Facebook employees. The company has previously said its revenue was on track to grow 70 per cent this year and Facebook board member Mark Andreessen said that the company will surpass $500 million in revenue this year.
In April, Facebook announced it had reached the 200 million user mark, and the company is hopeful its growth will continue long into the future. “We feel like we’re only just getting started,” Mr Long said.
“We’re getting great engagement from our users who are bringing users in with them all the time . . . 300 million is a really nice number but we’re hoping to get to a billion and beyond at this stage.”
