Facebook market cap tops $200bn
Facebook’s market capitalisation topped $200bn for the first time on Monday, beating rival Google in the time it took since going public to reach the symbolic figure.
As well as outstripping the valuation of much older technology companies including IBM, Intel and Oracle, the social network is now worth more than Toyota, Coca-Cola and Bank of America, and stands on a par with HSBC.
The milestone came as Facebook revealed growing momentum in its video business, giving publishers extra tools such as a YouTube-style view count as it chases a lucrative new stream of advertising revenue.
That leaves Facebook worth almost exactly half of Google, which closed up 0.6 per cent at $601.63 at a valuation of $400.4bn on Monday.
The two tech companies are fierce rivals in online advertising and vie for the title of the internet’s most popular destination, across suites of competing apps and services ranging from photo and video sharing and chat to search.
“Facebook has many drivers at this point in time that are all helping to drive rapid revenue growth and even better profit expansion – something even Google hasn’t done,” said Brian Wieser, analyst with Pivotal Research.
As a company blog post touted more than 1bn views of videos on its site every day, Facebook on Monday repeated a phrase that has become ubiquitous in its communications and symbolic of its ambition: “And we’re just getting started.”
Source: ft
