Facebook Files for IPO, Now Has 845 Million Users Worldwide

Finally, the curtain is raised, Facebook, today announced filed its papers for the IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission late today.

Facebook has raised a total of $2.4 billion in funding and seeks to raise as much as $5 billion in a public offering. In its filing, Facebook said that it is looking to raise about $5 billion when its IPO launches. There had been some rumors that the company was looking to raise $10 billion.

Facebook expects it will begin trading its stock sometime in the second quarter of 2012. The likely month for the stock launch could be May. Facebook will have "FB" as its trading symbol but did not name which stock exchange it will use.

According to the Menlo Park, CA-based firm's S-1 filing today, Facebook, which has increased its ad units per page from four to seven in the last two years, appears to have benefited greatly, as the company's ad revenue was a 42 percent lift in the number of ads delivered, as well as an 18 percent hike in the average price per ad delivered.

Facebook's advertising revenues in 2011 were $3.1 billion, up 69 percent from the year before. The company also claims to have $3.7 billion in annual revenue with $1.8 billion in operating income per year and a whopping $1 billion in annual net income.

In the papers filed today, the company also revealed it has "845 million users worldwide today." Adding, the company said that it has "483 million users who check out Facebook every day."

Pew Internet last summer reported that 92 percent of social network users are on Facebook -- just 17 percent on Twitter.

"We have achieved varying levels of penetration within the population of Internet users in different countries. For example, in countries such as Chile, Turkey, and Venezuela we estimate that we have penetration rates of greater than 80% of Internet users; in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States we estimate that we have penetration rates of approximately 60%; in countries such as Brazil, Germany, and India we estimate that we have penetration rates o approximately 20-30%; in countries such as Japan, Russia, and South Korea we estimate that we have penetration rates of less than 15%; and in China, where Facebook access is restricted, we have near 0% penetration," stated Facebook in the filing.

In a data on Facebook penetration across the globe released today, comScore said:

"Globally, Facebook reached 12 percent of the internet audience in December 2007 and as of December 2011 the social network reached over half of the internet audience, 55 percent (43 percentage point rise)", according to comScore.

Reach is greatest in Latin America (84.1 percent), followed by North America (82.9 percent). For more, see the chart below:

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO is the largest shareholder with 28.2 percent of the company. Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz owns 7.6 percent of the company. COO Sheryl Sandberg has 1,899,986 shares.

In the letter released, Zuckerberg explains, "Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission -- to make the world more open and connected. We think it's important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us."

The letter concludes with Facebook's 5 core principles: Focus on Impact, Move Fast, Be Bold, Be Open, Build Social Value.

Here is the full letter: