Facebook says it now has more than 300m users and that its cash flow is positive, two milestones that re-emphasise its position as one of the fastest-growing internet sites.
Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, made the announcements in a blog post on Tuesday. “It’s a large number, but the way we think about this, is that we’re just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.”
Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner, said that while the 300m was a significant figure, he was focusing on the fact that the company has positive cash flow, which means that Facebook is making more money from advertising than it is spending on capital expenditures.
“This is a more significant milestone than a raw increase in user population,” he said. “Facebook gains the ability to chart its own destiny. It allows the company to pursue, at least for the near future, Zuckerberg’s vision of becoming a long-lived, dominant player in the emerging era of the social web.”
Facebook said in March that it expected to be cash-flow-positive some time in 2010. That the company achieved it about a year ahead of schedule suggests that the company’s ad products are growing in popularity.
Facebook reached 200m users in March. To draw an additional 100m active users in just six months is a feat that has been achieved by only the largest and most successful companies in the history of the web.
Nate Elliott, an analyst for Forrester Research covering social media and video advertising, said that while the information about free cashflow was good news, the 300m users is the figure he was focusing on. “It’s the user growth that puts them in a position to grow the business and make more money,” he said.
Mr Elliot said that Facebook was approaching a scale that makes it very compelling to marketers.
With the larger scale, advertisers also have the ability to run more successful targeted campaigns.
Facebook is also innovating at a rapid pace. The company is expected to soon announce a voice-over-internet-protocol service that would allow members to talk with one another, putting Facebook into more direct competition with Google.
