Zee Media Bureau
Last week academics and researchers from Princeton University had compared Facebook to an epidemic and had predicted that it will be wiped out almost as quickly as it spread. They had made made some pretty dramatic claims about Facebook releasing a report that used a statistical model to claim that the social media giant will lose 80% of its active userbase between 2015 and 2017.
But going by the earnings and revenue growth reported in 2013, the claims seem a little weak.
2013 was the year in which Facebook proved wrong the investors who worried it could be knocked over by the shift to mobile. Since the middle of last year, Facebook shares have soared more than 90 per cent, as it reported much better than expected results in the second and third quarters, on the back of mobile advertising.
Analysts are, on average, forecasting revenue to rise further, by almost 50 per cent year on year to $7.6bn, and non-GAAP earnings to soar 58.5 per cent to 84 cents for the full year 2013.
The group will report its earnings on Wednesday after the close of the market.
The principal analyst, Tamara Gaffney at Adobe Digital Index, which gathers data on how marketers use social media, said the traffic recorded showed Facebook had record high click-through rates in the fourth quarter.
“Facebook had its best quarter ever,” she said, and the number of advertisements clicked on rose 125 per cent year on year in the fourth quarter.
