Facebook's largest app developer is on its way to making $100 million this year

Sep 3, 2009 09:49 GMT  ·  By
Facebook's largest app developer is on its way to making $100 million this year
   Facebook's largest app developer is on its way to making $100 million this year

Facebook is quickly becoming a powerhouse on the web. With its more than 250 million users worldwide, it is the biggest social network by a large margin and it is one of the most popular services online. It's getting so big, in fact, that services related to the social network can now boast more than 100 million users on their own. Social gaming company Zynga has blown past that mark recently and shows no signs of stopping, thanks in no small part to its very popular, though not necessarily original, FarmVille app.

As All Facebook reports, the company now has more than 100 million monthly users across its properties, with FarmVille leading the pack and breaking all types of records in the process. Already the most popular app with daily, active users, which now count over 13 million, it has more than double the traffic of the previous record-holder and current runner-up Farm Town, a similar game from which FarmVille borrowed more than just the name.

When it comes to monthly active users, FarmVille is on track to become the biggest app on Facebook, with just days away from passing the current record held by “How Well Do You Know Me?,” which stands at 35.5 million monthly users. And Facebook users surely love their farming, as this type of games is now collectively seeing over 72 million users.

Zynga is currently the biggest app developer for Facebook and could be considered an overwhelming success, if measured by the typical standard for startups of audience, page views, growth, etc. But that's not the whole story, as the social-gaming company does something that Facebook itself can't at the moment, it's actually profitable. Based on an economy of microtransactions, it is on its way to making more than $100 million in revenue this year, compared with Facebook's estimated $500 million, while also turning a profit. All this and the company hasn't apparently spent any of its venture capital funding.