After their Q4 2015 results were revealed, it’s obvious that Facebook is growing at an impressive pace, becoming more and more powerful, meaning that Google can already consider’s the social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg a possible threat.
According to Business Insider, the last quarter marked the first time when Facebook‘s revenue surpassed $5 billion. As a side note, Yahoo, a company with way more years on the market, can’t generate this much in a whole year.
More interesting things to come
What’s surprising is that the social network’s earning reached $1.56 billion, basically doubling, despite the massive investments made in Menlo Park, California, where the company tries is exploiting virtual reality, artificial intelligence and tries to bring the Internet in remote parts of the world.
The same source mentions that this performance also lifted Facebook‘s stock with $11.37, which roughly translates to 12 percent, reaching $105.82 in extended trading.
Of course, Google is still far away, having a total revenue three times bigger, but the social network’s mobile advertising earnings are growing constantly, not to mention Instagram, which also started to bring profit.
In 2016, we’re looking forward to seeing how Facebook is planning to attack the virtual reality market, after the Oculus Rift’s consumer edition was finally introduced, after the social media network acquired the company in 2014, for $2 billion. And there’s no secret that Google is always making progress from this point of view, hiring VR specialists and trying to catch up.
Will Google invest in social media again?
Finally, it’s worthless to say that social networking will remain Facebook‘s foundation, no matter what, currently having 1.59 billion registered users. “I’m excited about our progress and the chance to build something great for the future,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts in a Wednesday conference call.
As for Google, it will be very interesting to see if they’re planning to invest more in social networking, after Google+ was not exactly what they were expecting.
