Facebook Revenue Per User is $1.21

Facebook says it earns $1.21 per user. Keep in mind that Facebook also has 901 million monthly users. 


Worldwide mobile monthly active users increased by 69 percent from 288 million as of March 31, 2011 to 488 million as of March 31, 2012.


In all regions, an increasing number of our MAUs are accessing Facebook through mobile devices, with users in the United States, India, Indonesia, and Brazil representing key sources of mobile growth over this period. 


About 83 million mobile MAUs accessed Facebook solely through mobile apps or our mobile website during the month ended March 31, 2012.


Some 405 million mobile MAUs accessed Facebook from both personal computers and mobile devices during that month. 

Zynga Drives Content Sales (or Virtual Currency) at Facebook

Advertising still drives the overwhelming portion of Facebook revenue, but growth of digital content sales is faster, according to Facebook. Much of that activity was driven by users of Zynga games. 


In 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, Zynga directly accounted for approximately 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively, of total Facebook revenue, mostly from virtual goods payments. 


If you consider sales of digital goods to be a "content sales" operation, you'd be right. But since Facebook also requires use of its captive Facebook Credits mechanism to do so, those revenues might be considered "virtual currency" operations. You can take your pick which description is more accurate. 


Zynga also generated about five percent of Facebook ad revenue from third parties in 2011, and about eight percent of first quarter 2012 third party display ad revenue. 


 According to a 2010  In-Stat report, the worldwide revenue generated from the sale of virtual goods on social networking sites, online worlds, and casual games increased from $2 billion in 2007 to $7 billion in 2010, and is forecasted to increase to $15 billion by 2014. 


Still, the advertising opportunity is an order of magnitude bigger than that. 


Revenue from Facebook's payments division nearly doubled between the first quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, though. 

Facebook advertising of 37 percent occurred on a far-bigger base. 

Facebook brought in $186 million in revenue from its payments division in the first quarter of  2012, up from $94 million in the first quarter of  2011. But Facebook had total revenue of about $3.7 billion. 

Most U.K. Users Seem to Overestimate Their Mobile Data Consumption

New research from billmonitor.com, the Ofcom-approved mobile price comparison site based on analysis of customers' actual bills, shows that smart phone data use has more than doubled since late 2010.

The average U.K. smart phone user now uses 154 MBytes per month, compared to 71 MBytes in late 2010. Nearly 30 percent of smart phone users now use more than 250 MBytes per month.

The study by billmonitor of 215,507 bills from U.K. customers suggests the flip side of growing data consumption: many users are on plans that are more expensive than needed.

In fact, “bill shock” when users exceed their usage caps is surprisingly limited, the study suggests.

The billmonitor.com’s analysis of customer bills shows that in any given month, only around two percent of analyzed bills include out-of-bundle data charges of more than £10. Also, it appears that out-of-bundle spending on mobile data is actually decreasing, even as data usage increases overall.

The real problem facing most UK smartphone users is that they are overcompensating for the amount of data they use by having a much too large data allowance, and overpaying.

Half of all smart phone users still aer using less than 154 MBytes worth of data a month. But 88 percent of smart phone users have opted for a monthly data allowance of at least 500 MBytes, of which most goes unused.

Mobile Payments Will be "Hybrid" for Some Time

The founding of a new industry, such as mobile commerce, always will threaten the leaders of the industry that risks being replaced, at the same time it offers brand-new opportunities for attackers of all sorts. 


That perhaps especially is true when an existing way of doing things necessarily involves a collision between several large existing industries. In the case of mobile commerce that might reasonably include banks, payment processors, retail software and hardware, mobile services, retailing, marketing and advertising. 


At least early on, successes often have taken a line of least resistance. Starbucks did not focus on anything "fancy," in technology terms. But it gained huge traction, fast, by essentially linking a smart phone with bar code readers and prepaid cards. 


Google Wallet likewise essentially has taken the tack of linking a mobile phone with a prepaid instrument as well. Square, Intuit and PayPal have used dongles to turn smart phones or tablets into retailer point of sale terminals. 


The main point is that early successes have happened where innovators built something new that works with a huge installed base of supporting infrastructure and common user behaviors. 


It might not have seemed so logical, at first, to unite an established behavior and payment instrument--the prepaid card--with smart phones to create a "mobile payment" system. 


Nor might it have seemed so logical to use a simple dongle to turn a smart phone or tablet into a retailer payment terminal. But taking the line of least resistance has proven successful. Rather than attempting to change behavior, or create huge new ecosystems, some have adapted existing behaviors and ecosystems in new ways. 


Along the way, suppliers will find themselves working in fields in which they have little experience. Problems will arise.  Security will remain an issue, for example. Sometimes the obvious answer will be to marry expertise in one field with capabilities of another. 


That sometimes will take the form of "mashing up" a mature technology and set of processes, such as "prepaid cards," with a technologically-emerging set of hardware and software, such as smart phone devices and apps. 


In the history of technology disruptions, that is a common pattern. Hybrid approaches often work, early on, because they are practical, and build on what is already accepted practice. Think of steam engines on sailing ships. Initially, it was not practical to drive a ship solely using steam engines. So shipbuilders grafted steam engines onto sailing ships. 


The full replacement of an older technology might take much longer. Consider that the first mobile phones went into service in 1946, but it wasn't until the mid-1990s that "most" people used them.


The first video games were played in 1961. But video gaming did not first become a mass behavior until the early 1980s. The first personal computer was created in 1964, but significant adoption did not happen until the mid-1980s. 


That is why the "prepaid account plus mobile phone" will be a successful early approach to mobile payments. It is a hybrid of existing behaviors and processes. Only later will mobile payments emerge in a more "finished" mode. 

What's a Wallet, and How and Why Do You Use It?

There are reasons why Google Wallet, cash, debit and credit cards and checks exist, and why some consumers prefer to use one or a few of those, rather than others, as payment tools. Those habits will be hard to change. 


To design a successful mobile payment process therefore requires changing stubborn end user behaviors.


To cause change, mobile payment proponents also must understand those barriers, including the values and attitudes shoppers have when they choose to pay for purchases one way, rather than another. 

A study conducted by Ipsos for American Express broadly suggests three payment "personae," with distinct sets of values and payment preferences. They also therefore have key objections or attractions to using mobile payments.


If 69 percent worry about security, that objection has to be overcome. But that isn't a primary objection for every user. "Techies" will use any tool that is convenient, and prefer the "bleeding edge." Security isn't a big concern; coolness is. Cash isn't as "good" as using a smart phone, because it is easier to track expenses when using either online or smart phone payment methods. Credit cards are the current default payment method. 


For many shoppers, though, security probably is the biggest objection. Identity theft is a big issue, so brand preferences lean towards their established financial institutions. "Convenience" is not as strong a value for this sort of buyer. For this persona, cash and credit cards are central and preferred payment methods, though there remains some use of checks.


For others, the chief concern is an ability to manage and understand spending. Debit cards and cash currently are the preferred payment methods, because each is viewed as helping with the budgeting of spending. So convenience, security and control are key values for different parts of the user base. 


But addressing any one of those key values does not necessarily drive interest for the other two types of personae. "New" is attractive to techies. 


"Safety" is the big value for "security buffs," so "fear of compromised data" is the key objection. 


Spending control is the big driver for "budget bosses" so fees are a big objection. (click on the image to see the full chart). 


 

2.5 Billion Unbanked Consumers: Mobile Can Fix That Problem

Some 68 percent of adults surveyed by the World Bank say they have used a mobile phone for a money transaction. In Sudan, 52 percent say they have done so. In Gabon, 50 percent, in Algeria 44 percent. 


Some 2.5 billion people do not have access to financial services, often because bank branches are unavailable. That's why mobile money transfers are so useful. With just a little use of existing retail locations, people can pay education or utility bills, for example, using feature phones and simple text messaging, without needing physical bank branching locations. 

Most of the Revenue in Mobile Content Business is "Access"

2011 was the first year that global consumer spending on media content, apps and services for mobile phones broke through the $100 billion barrier, according to Strategy Analytics. 


But there is an important caveat: 60 percent of that spending was for broadband access. In other words, some $73 billion was spent by consumers for mobile data access. In 2012, mobile data will represent $82.8 billion in spending, up 9.5 percent over 2011 levels.


Apps are now the second largest category for revenues. Advertiser spending on mobile media is expected to almost double (85.4 percent growth) from $6.3 billion to $11.6 billion in 2012, Strategy Analytics says.


That implies $149.8 billion in global revenue in 2012, a 17 percent increase over 2011.

Apps are expected to account for about 19 percent of global consumer spending in 2012, amounting to $26.1 billion, up about 31 percent over 2011.


In fact, it often is the case that much of the revenue in any product category consists of "access services." Consider cloud computing. Well over 33 percent of total end user spending on "cloud computing" is "access," for example.