Media owners and ad networks will be trembling again as new forecasts predict Facebook taking around 20% of online ad revenue by 2015. If they’re right it will change the economics of web publishing and the role of behavioural advertising, it will also shift the focus for many consumer brands to be entirely within Facebook rather than out of the web. Here’s what’s driving their beleif in the big digital revenue switch…
Otkritie, one of Russia’s biggest financial institutions, said Facebook was worth $76.4bn (£47.3bn).
That is 50pc more than the $50bn valuation Goldman Sachs placed on Facebook when it invested in January.
Tibor Bokor, an analyst at the bank, said his sky-high valuation was justified because he expects Facebook to control 20pc of the online advertising market by 2015.
He predicted that Facebook’s revenues would soar to $16.8bn in five years, from an estimated $1.2bn last year.
Bokor added that the sale of games and virtual gifts is expected to rake in a further $2.9bn a year by 2015.
“In five years we expect Facebook to double its users to 1.2bn people – roughly 40pc of all the world’s estimated internet users,” Bokor said. “Facebook should have 20pc of all online adverts worldwide in 2015, compared to 2.7pc in 2010.”
Bokor predicted that Facebook’s market value would swell to $135bn (£83.5bn) by 2015. That would put the seven-year-old website in fourth spot in the FTSE 100, behind HSBC, Vodafone and BP at today’s prices.