Facebook has set new records for both the number of users it has, far outstripping every other social media company, and the amount of revenue it generates. But how much are you actually worth to Facebook?



During the Facebook earnings call on Wednesday, the social network revealed that it now has 1.59 billion users that visit it on a monthly basis, world wide, which is up 40 million users since its last report, Q3 2015. That accounts for around 50% of the 3.2 billion internet users globally, according to data from the ITU, and 21.5% of the global population.

Daily active users were also up, reaching 1.04 billion users, while mobile-only monthly users have increased to 823 million making up 51.7% of the social network’s monthly active users. Mobile Facebook users, of which there are 1.4 billion a month, also account for 80% of Facebook’s revenue, mostly from advertising, which helped it break records and reach $5.841bn in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015, up over $1.3bn from last quarter. Facebook makes money from targeted advertising, using the wealth of knowledge it has on its users, but also from payments and a few other areas.

So, perhaps the most interesting figure from Facebook’s earnings report is just how much each and every user is worth, on average, to the social network. And that sum? It grew by over a quarter to $3.73 per user each quarter.

Of course, not everyone is equal across the world. You may be surprised to hear that a US or Canadian user is worth $13.54 each quarter to Facebook, while someone in the Asia-Pacific region is only worth $1.59 to the social network.

If you happen to live in Europe, including the UK, you’re only worth one-third of a North American to Facebook, at $4.5o every three months, while the “rest of the world”, which includes most developing nations are only worth $1.22 per user.

Facebook’s average revenue per user for Q4 2015. Photograph: Facebook

The reason the sums vary so much is primarily down to the amount of advertising money spent in each region. The US was worth $2.8bn in advertising revenue to Facebook last quarter, while the second biggest Facebook market, Europe, was worth only $1.4bn. But with even Americans individually worth less than $60 a year, wherever you may be, perhaps you’re not worth as much to Facebook as you’d have thought.



