After a messy initial public offering that left both investors and analysts largely in the dark, Facebook’s shares have reached their highest price yet. Facebook shares are now worth $45.05 each, surpassing a previous high of $45 from May of 2012.
Investors in Facebook had previously voiced their concerns about the company’s monetisation efforts, which had largely been limited to small advertisements that displayed alongside the News Feed.
But improvements to Facebook’s advertising system, including a dramatic increase in the number of mobile ad formats available to advertisers, have improved income for the well-known social network.
During its first year as a publically traded company, Facebook’s share price was on the downward slope. After an incredible IPO that benefited hugely from the hype of the world’s largest social network going on sale, the public worried about how the free social networking platform come become a secure, profitable business.
But major efforts to improve its advertising system – the website’s biggest source of income – have been successful. Mobile advertising, which was previously not a main source of revenue for Facebook, now accounts for 41 percent of its total advertising income.
The social network has also benefited from huge growth in its already impressive user base. The company’s mobile user base has grown to 819 billion users, and the total number of unique people using the website is now over one billion.
Excellent growth, both in revenue and the sheer size of the social network, has made Facebook’s share price a staggering $45.05. Facebook shares were priced at $38 for its initial public offering, and increased to a former record of $45 in just a few hours.
Investors and Facebook executives are celebrating the stock surge, with many tech analysts noting that the company has managed to avoid many of the chief concerns raised by analysts and commentators following its boom-and-bust IPO last year.
