Facebook Revenue Increases by 151% To $1.86 billion

Facebook is generating profits at a faster-than-expected rate, and will likely attract so many investors this year that it will have to disclose financial data similar to a publicly traded company by April 2012, according to a document distributed by Goldman Sachs (GS.N).

 According to an estimate from eMarketer, Facebook took in $1.86 billion in worldwide advertising revenue for 2010, a 151% increase over the company's estimated 2009 advertising revenue of $740 million worldwide. Not surprisingly, the majority of that, $1.21 billion, was earned inside the U.S.

The estimation  was reported  by eMarketer  which  says that " in 2010 Facebook has earned $1.86 billion worldwide, excluding the revenue earned from Facebook Credits. Out of that $1.21 billion, came from U.S ad revenues, assigned yet another stunning figure to Facebook’s name. The total amount of online ad revenue in U.S is $25.8 billion and nearly 5% of that had been bagged by Facebook alone. Previously, Bloomberg had also reported that Facebook’s ad revenues for 2010 is likely to reach $2 billion.

 What that means is "a majority of small and medium business was instrumental of some of Facebook's ad revenue  Out of the  majority of revenue, 60% or $1.12 billion, was earned from smaller companies in 2010, those more likely to be using self-serve tools rather than work through a media agency. That's greater than the $740 million coming from major marketers like Coke, P&G or Match.com. 

Earlier Reuters reported  that Goldman Sachs,could put as much as $2 billion into Facebook's coffers without an IPO. that based on Goldman's offering plan, the company had made $1.2 billion in the first nine months of the year, suggesting that an annual run-rate of $2 billion is a little higher than expected.Goldman recently valued  Facebook at $50 billion in a separate, $450 million funding.

Debra Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer said, “Those advertisers are really juicing Facebook’s growth. They buy advertising in bulk. They’ve done it for years on Google, and now they’re taking that expertise to Facebook.”