案例 | Facebook

背景介紹

2004年, Mark Zuckerberg和他的哈佛室友們於美國加州創立Facebook。這是一家在線社交網路服務公司，目前市值超過5000億美元。Facebook先後收購了Instagram, WhatsApp和Oculus，示愛Snapchat被拒，如今正在把現女友Instagram打造成理想型Snapchat的道路上不倦努力。昨天Facebook發布了2017年Q1財報，儘管營收，凈利潤，每股收益表現都超出華爾街預期，尤其廣告收入同比增長51%，當日股價卻應聲下跌3%。

英文原文

Facebook smashed analysts earnings estimates in the first quarter of the year, shaking off "fake news" controversy and posting revenue that topped estimates but shares dipped in after-hours trade.

The numbers

GAAP EPS: $1.04 per diluted share vs. 87 cents expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate

Revenue: $8.03 billion vs. $7.84 billion expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate

Monthly active users: 1.94 billion vs. 1.91 billion expected by StreetAccount

The social media platform makes most of its money by connecting advertisers to its massive user base. It earned $7.86 billion in advertising revenue, up 51 percent from a year ago, and higher than the $7.68 billion expected by a StreetAccount estimate. Average revenue per user was $4.23, higher than the $4.17 expected by StreetAccount.

Daily watch time of live video has quadrupled since last year, Zuckerberg told analysts on a conference call on Wednesday.

Increasing ad load — the number of ads on the website — has been one of three main factors of Facebooks growth, along with user growth and increasing time spent on the platform, Wehner said in November. But ad load could "come down meaningfully" after mid-2017, Wehner said at that time.

And accusations of promoting fake news and extreme videos have weighed on the company.

Zuckerberg vowed on Wednesday ahead of earnings to hire thousands of workers over the next year to monitor sensitive content, after gruesome and violent acts have been streamed on Facebook Live.

Costs rose 40 percent to about $4.71 billion, up from just $3.37 billion a year ago, as headcount ballooned 38 percent from a year ago.

Facebook also has some prominent new competition from a year ago: Snap, which went public this spring. The company has unleashed a string of rival tools to compete with Snaps ad dollars.

案例分析

1. What is the main revenue stream map of Facebook?

Advertisement.

知識點：IB教材Unit 3.2 types of revenue stream

1) asset sales: the company sells a product or service to a client. The client will become the owner of the product.

2) usage fee: a client pays every time he/she uses the company』s product or service (e.g.: airline, hotel)

3) subscription fee: clients subscribe on a weekly/monthly/annual base to use the company』s infrastructure (e.g.: software services, cloud services, gym membership)

4) advertisement: clients use the company』s platform and user base to advertise its product or service.

5) leasing and renting: clients use the company』s assets for a period of time and the ownership belongs to the company.

6) licensing: clients pay to get permission to use the company』s intellectual property

7) franchising: clients pay to permission to use the company』s brand name, logo, trademark and business model

8) brokerage fee: the company takes commission to close a deal between two other companies/individuals

2. Why Facebook』s share price dip despite better-than expected earnings?

1) scandals on fake news, sensitive and violent content on Facebook live

2) a copycat of several tools and functions developed by Snapchat, showing a lack of innovation

3) good financial performance mainly contributed by its ad revenue without alternative revenue stream if the ad load goes down in the next quarters as predicted.

知識點：IB教材Unit 3.1 influencing factors of share price

Share price is determined, to a large extent, by investors』 expectation on the company』s future profitability, which will sway the supply and demand of the company』s shares on the stock market. Investors』 prediction on profitability is mainly supported by the following evidences:

1) Financial performance and revenue stream (is it diverse?)

2) company』s strategic plans (new market, new product, mergers and takeovers, restructuring, etc)

3) competitors』s strategic plans

4) scandals and law suits

5) government new policies and macro-economic environment

6) Industrial trends and outlooks

【雪莉說】How and why has its biz model transformed?

Facebook的商業模式變遷從這張Facebook發布會上小扎同學公布的10 year roadmap可以看出它一直走在爭奪移動用戶場景入口的前沿。

Facebook從做圖文社交媒體平台起家，2010年後用戶熱衷於各種精美的濾鏡效果，於是花了10億美金收購Instagram。收購後發現光有好技術不夠，要給Instagram大量引流，轉型為社交媒體平台+移動消息平台的整合平台，於是很土豪地花了190億美元收購WhatsApp, 當時所有華爾街分析師就一個聲音，小扎同學腦子進水了吧，然而人家自己覺得只要能快速轉型和整合，再貴都值。2014年底Facebook收購VR設備生產商Oculus，揚言未來十年內智能手機最終會消失，讓位於虛擬現實(VR), 增強現實(AR)和混合現實(MR)，一時間2014年成為VR元年，帶動了中國VR創業井噴。目前看來收購Oculus並不是一步好棋，然而落子無悔，更何況能否消除其平台上暴力視頻的影響還有待觀察，這個掌握了三分之一地球人個人信息的科技巨頭是否能do no evil是小扎現階段面臨的艱難課題。

「I think a simple rule of business is: if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.」

Mark Zuckerberg

英文原文節選自CNBC

圖片來自網路