14 DAY TRIAL // It was really just a matter of time, considering how fast it was growing, but Facebook has just announced it has officially passed the 300 million monthly active users mark. While predictable, it's no small feat for the social network launched just five years ago. Facebook reached 250 million users just a month and a half ago and has doubled its user base since the beginning of the year. Along with the milestone in user numbers, the social network also revealed an interesting piece of info – it is now cash flow positive meaning that from now on Facebook is actually making money.
“As of today, Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world. It's a large number, but the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone,” Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote. “We're also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter.”
Facebook has been setting all sorts of records for a couple of years now. It became the largest social network in the world last year and has continued to grow at a huge rate since. At the beginning of the year it had just 150 million users worldwide and was still somewhat smaller than MySpace in the US. It didn't take long to overtake it though and now Facebook is the largest social network in the US with 85 million users and a significant lead over MySpace. At this rate it may reach 380 million by the year's end and break through the 500 million users mark in 2010.
But, while 300 million users is impressive, what is bound to impress investors even more is the fact that the social network became cash flow positive last quarter, something that wasn't supposed to happen until next year. The company has been EBITDA profitable for a while now but just recently the money coming into it every month managed to surpass the money going out. And with financial stability pretty much secured it may have a shot at becoming the largest social platform in history, maybe even breaking the mythical 1 billion users mark.