Facebook derives nearly all of its revenue from personalised advertisements that are shown to users of the Facebook and Instagram social networks. The company also has a burgeoning hardware business where it is building products like the Portal video-calling device, Oculus virtual-reality headsets and smart glasses, which are set to be released sometime in 2021.

Facebook held its initial public offering in May 2012, debuting with a market cap of USD 104-billion.

The company suffered a colossal 19% drop in 2018 after posting disappointing revenue and user figures for the second quarter of that year. That drop came amid a number of scandals that year, including data leaks, fake news and, most notably, the Cambridge Analytica scandal — in which a data firm improperly accessed the data of 87-million Facebook users and used it to target ads for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

Despite the scandals, Facebook was able to bounce back and has continued to grow its user base and steadily increase its average revenue per user. The stock price is now up more than 90% since 27 July 2018.

(Courtesy: Agencies)