Facebook could be worth $234-bn by 2015, says study
01 Apr 2011
Facebook will have market value of $234 billion by 2015, up from its current valuation of $85 billion, according to an analysis by brokerage firm Wedbush Securities that analyzes the valuations of private companies.
Wedbush Securities analyst Lou Kerner, who made this estimate in a report last week on the what he called the 'second internet' (comprising companies like Zynga, Twitter, The Huffington Post and Quora as well as Facebook), says by 2015 Facebook will earn $11 billion on $22 billion and have a market value of $234 billion.
"That makes the company's recent second market valuation of $85 billion look like a fine deal indeed,'' the business web site said.
In his earlier predictions in February 2010, Kerner had said that Facebook might be worth $100 billion by 2015. But he now thinks Facebook's margins are better by around 50 per cent and that it will get a bigger share of the global ad market.
The analyst also believes "that other revenue sources - like credits - will scale faster than he originally anticipated'."
According to the report, only one technology company - Apple - has a current higher market cap of $321 billion than that predicted for Facebook by 2015.
