Starting off as a medium of social interaction for the fellow college mates, Facebook Inc. has managed to obliterate a lot of its competitors that came along its way!
Back in 2004, when cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched popular social media website Facebook Inc., it followed a format similar to long-forgotten Orkut. At that time, critics were not confident about its success. Since then, the company has gone on to become the 10th largest company currently listed on the S&P 500 Index, thanks to its efficient corporate strategies. Who would have thought that the company which was valued at just $2 billion four years ago, would escalate to such a great height in a matter of only four years. With its impressive user growth, the social media behemoth has successfully created a monopoly of sorts, as rivals stand nowhere close.
According to Facebook’s annual report 2014, the company reported billion in revenues, reflecting an impressive 58% year-over-year (YoY) increase. Most of these revenues came from advertising, which makes sense if we consider that the company increased its average price per user by 173% from the year-ago period.
For starts, Facebook has a very large user base. The sign-up process is fairly simple too, as users can join easily if they have a registered email address. Given that this process does not require any subscription fee, more and more users keep joining by the day. As of September 30, 2015, it had 1.55 billion monthly active users (MAUs). Keeping in view the diverse range of users around the world, Facebook is tailoring its site in such a way that once a user logs onto the site, they don’t close the tab.
When the company’s top rival Twitter Inc. introduced verified celebrity accounts, Facebook followed suit and lured the same audience, as its 63,206-character post limits effortlessly outclassed the $12 billion company’s 140-character tweet limits. When Apple Inc. introduced its iMessage feature, Android users were undeniably left out. However, Facebook solved their woes by launching the Facebook “Messenger” app on iOS, Android, as well as Blackberry and Windows phones, simultaneously.
Besides text messaging, Messenger has several other interesting features including audio messaging, audio as well as video calls. The app’s high definition (HD) video calls offer greater quality than Microsoft’s Skype calls, giving the latter a run for money. The company also keeps updating the app regularly to ensure consistent improvement and to add cool new features.
Facebook also tried to take on Google’s YouTube with its revamped approach towards videos. It’s relatively shorter clips have lured in large audiences. As of August 2014, Facebook videos had a billion more views than YouTube, as per comscore. Nowadays, many renowned corporations use Facebook for advertising.
All in all, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that once a user logs in on Facebook, every form of entertainment is just a click away. This is the reason why the company’s revenues are increasing significantly year by year.
Even though the company has a range of competitors including Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn, they stand nowhere close to the company’s user growth, wide range of apps, consistent updates, unique features, and creative ideas. Without a doubt, Facebook still stands many years ahead of them.
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