Facebook crosses billion threshold, on quest for growth

Reuters: Facebook crosses billion threshold, on quest for growth

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc passed the 1 billion user mark in September, a level of global penetration that is a remarkable achievement for an 8-year-old social network and a heightened challenge to its quest for sustained growth.

Facebook, which has endured a bruising four months in the stock market since a haphazard May 18 initial public offering, has acknowledged that a slowdown in new-user acquisition is inevitable as its worldwide reach expands.

But doubts over whether the company can squeeze more and more dollars out of each network member - given well-publicized struggles to monetize the growing ranks of users who access Facebook from mobile devices - have shaved more than 40 percent off Facebook's value since its IPO, although shares still trade at a lofty 45 times projected 2012 earnings.

Thursday's announcement that Facebook crossed the billion threshold on September 14 confirmed expectations on Wall Street that growth is actually trailing off.

The latest quarter's growth appeared likely to come in lower in raw numbers, let alone by percentage, than the April-June quarter's 54 million new users. About 45 million joined from the start of July, when it had 955 million users, through September 14.

And the previous quarter was way down from the 102 million who joined during the first three months of 2012. ...