From Bloomberg:
Facebook Inc. received an investment from Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies that values the company at $10 billion, a third less than the valuation assigned to the social-networking company when Microsoft Corp. invested in 2007.
Digital Sky will buy $200 million in preferred stock, gaining a 1.96 percent stake in the company, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook said today in a statement.
I really find it difficult to digest the fact that Facebook is worth 10 billion dollars and I think the guys who are valuing this at 10 billion make a mistake. That’s not based on any mathematical model but just that I don’t remember the last ad I saw on Facebook and I am pretty positive that I never clicked on one.
Dear Sir,
If Facebook is valued at only 10 billion dollars, why did they buy Whatsapp for 19 billion?
Anyway do you think it was a good buy? I dont seem to think so as there many apps like Whatsapp in the market. Kindly share your opinion on this.
This is an article from 2009 and at that time FB was valued at $10 billion, right now it is valued at $150 billion 🙂
If you are interested in knowing why these IT companies are buying things like WhatsApp for billions of dollars please read this article by Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson as it provides good insight into the issue.
http://avc.com/2014/03/the-search-for-the-next-platform/
Even I wonder how much revenue for the advertisers does a Facebook page or a Google ad bring in — no one I know, myself included, has made a purchasing decision based on those.
Perhaps the behaviour of the average net user in Europe & US is different ?
I have to say that I agree. Valuing facebook that high was probably a mistake. The last ad I clicked on facebook was because of the strategic placement and its proximity towards a different link I was trying to click.
If they are tricking people into clicking ads, they will not go so far. I’d be interested to know what valuation model they used for this.
One of the reasons of my skepticism is that I don’t read any great reviews on how marketing on FB has helped someone greatly. I am not sure how many of those impressions or clicks actually translate into any sales.
I definitely agree with you that as it is Facebook does not act like a company that ought to be worth that amount of money. However they do have so much targeted personal information about their users that if they knew what they did they should easily be able to make a HUGE profit from it and then the value might be fair.