The social network is estimated to have made upwards of $600 million in 2009

Mar 3, 2010 09:33 GMT  ·  By

Speculating on how much money Facebook makes is almost as popular as speculating on when Twitter will start bringing in the cash. We heard several numbers last year and, as the time passed, those numbers increased. The latest estimates coming from the Inside Facebook blog are higher yet again and put the social network's revenue at above $600 million for 2009. And things are looking even better for 2010.

"The company has been roughly doubling its revenues every year — 2007 came in at $150 million. We expect that trend to continue for the foreseeable future, making Facebook a multi-billion dollar company within the next few years," Eric Eldon writes at Inside Facebook.

From the estimates, Facebook has made its 'fortunes' from a combination of revenue sources with the majority focusing on advertising. The biggest chunk came from Performance Advertising, which is to say, the regular ads that show up in the right sidebar on the social network among other places. This brought Facebook $350 million in 2009, more than half of its revenue for the year.

The second biggest source was Brand Advertising, which saw a sharp increase last year and was well above expectations. Big brands with big ad budgets have begun to see Facebook as a serious contender and have opened up their wallets just a bit, bringing the social network $225 million last year. This revenue source also has the biggest potential for growth in 2010.

Facebook hasn't exactly cleaned out with the Microsoft ad deal, which was prematurely ended at the beginning of this year. While some initial estimates put that revenue at $150,000 million, it turns out that was the entire sum generated by the Microsoft-run ads of which Facebook gets only a portion. As such, Inside Facebook estimates that the social network only made $50 million from its Microsoft deal last year.

Bringing up the rear is revenue from its virtual currency, Facebook Credits, which were responsible for just $10 million of Facebook's 2009 revenue. This is because the social network counts the money it makes from the Facebook Gift Store, which has been proving quite popular as Brand Advertising leaving only Credits to account for Virtual Goods. Since Facebook's virtual currency is still in the testing phase, this didn't add up to too much money.

Adding it all up, you get a figure of $635 million in revenue for 2009. What are more interesting are the estimates for 2010, when Facebook is believed to cross the $1-billion mark and possibly go as high as $1.1 billion. That's well above previous estimates. With 400 million users and growing and a clearer focus on monetization, it may be that even this figure turns out to be conservative. Obviously, Facebook won't comment on any of the numbers.

"Facebook is a private company, and we do not publicly disclose our financial results. We understand there is a great deal of interest and curiosity in our past and potential financial performance. However, external attempts to forecast revenue are fundamentally speculative and should be treated as such. We’re focused on building our business to be successful over the long-term," Facebook responded in an emailed statement.