The following is an excerpt from Robert Hof | August 30, 2012 | Forbes.com |
Facebook‘s revenues, particularly from advertising, won’t grow as fast as expected this year, according to a revised forecast from market researcher eMarketer.
EMarketer today said the No. 1 social network will just break $5 billion in revenues this year, with $4.2 billion coming from advertising and the rest from payments and other revenues. That’s down $1 billion from the research firm’s estimate from last February, several months before Facebook’s initial public offering in early May. Even so, Facebook’s ad revenues are still forecast to jump 34% this year from a year ago, and rise 29% next year.
The key reason for the change actually does not reflect a key concern of investors: mobile advertising. [Corrected; I initially misread the release to say mobile was a key factor.] Although Facebook has been slow to roll out advertising on mobile devices, eMarketer had not factored that into previous forecasts either. Instead, the estimate cut reflects building concerns about the effectiveness and measurability of Facebook ads.
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