Facebook's market value breaks $200 billion mark

Mark Zuckerberg’s 10-year-old company is now the 22nd-largest in the world (Photo: Reuters)

9 September 2014

Facebook’s stock-market value has smashed through the $200 billion (£124 billion) mark as investors bet the new mobile internet boom has further to go in the run up to the expected unveiling tonight of Apple’s iPhone 6.

Shares in Facebook, the world’s biggest social media company, rose almost 1% to close at $77.89 last night — more than double the $38 price it floated at in May 2012.

Bloomberg estimated that Mark Zuckerberg’s 10-year-old company is now the 22nd-largest in the world — with a higher valuation than US giants such as IBM and Coca-Cola and putting it close to the UK’s largest bank, HSBC — and it has reached $200 billion faster than Google did. Zuckerberg, 30, has a personal fortune estimated at $34.5 billion.

Facebook’s share price briefly halved after its botched float amid fears that the company was struggling to move from “desktop” computers to the mobile screen, with less room for advertising, but the smartphone boom has led users to spend more time looking at social media.

Apple shares have bounced back 25% in the last year as Wall Street reckons the new iPhone and much-anticipated iWatch can boost the mobile economy.

The company has more than 1.3 billion users, hitting 100 million in Africa this week, and has made shrewd acquisitions, including photo-sharing app Instagram, bought for $1 billion, and messaging app What’s App, which has moved from 450 million to 600 million users since Zuckerberg bought it for $19 billion.

Facebook's market value breaks $200 billion mark

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