Facebook took a formal step toward joining the ranks of other public technology giants by filing for its eagerly anticipated initial public offering.
The company filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, officially declaring its intent to go public. Facebook plans to raise $5bn (£3.16bn) through the IPO, according to the filing. The last major tech IPO was Google's, which raised $1.9bn.
The S-1 pulls back the curtain on Facebook's business, providing investors with a formal glimpse into its financials. Last year, it saw revenue double to $3.7bn, while its profit grew 65 percent to $1bn. Over the past two years, its revenue rose nearly fivefold, while its profit more than quadrupled.
More important are the hundreds of millions of users who regularly visit the site, exchanging messages, 'liking' each others' comments, and posting photos and videos. For better or worse, Facebook has a lot of data on those users, which translates to a large and engaged audience for targeted advertising.
For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Facebook files to go public, plans to raise $5B on CNET News.
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Talkback
Let's hope that they take more notice of their shareholders than they do of their poor customers! I have never experienced customer service as bad as Facebook's, even ebay and Paypal were better and that's saying something. When you finally find the link to send a complaint to them about billing they reply and tell you to repeat your complaint to an email address! There then follows a series of replies from their Dublin orifice which can only be described as "the ramblings of some deranged robot". Writing to their Dublin address yielded zero satisfaction either. Finally in desperation I contacted Paypal to stop the payment to them, and Paypal obliged. Next I get a shitty message that will not clear upon login to Faecebook that says "thou shalt not in future attempt to stop payments to us in future" and an "agree" button and also a threat that your Faecebook will be summarily deleted if you so much as think about not paying them. So I wrote to their little office in Palo Alto, to the director of operations there. But she is probably too busy to answer as well, because in 3 weeks I have no reply. What was the dispute about? £5 over charged on an advert I placed with them!
And people wonder why there is caution about doing business with large, consumer-focused technology companies, most of which are based 6,000 miles away...
"...based 6,000 miles away..."
Indeed, so who do you complain to when things go wrong?
I would not buy shares in Faecebook even if I could afford it!