Facebook's 6 month revenue said to be $1.6 bn
Social network's income reported to have doubled in first half of year
An anonymous source has reported that Facebook's revenues doubled to $1.6 billion in the first six months of 2011.
Speaking to Reuters, the source said that net income was up to nearly $500 million for the half year, but didn't reveal how that total was split between revenue streams.
The network is now valued at around $80 billion by private investment estimates, with many analyst expecting an IPO at some point in the next 18 months.
The company has faced a recent challenge from its biggest potential rival in both the social and net advertising spaces: Google. The launch of that company's social network, Google+ has had strong support from many of social gaming's biggest names, but Facebook is still the virtually undisputed market leader.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at Gamescom last month, Jen Begemann of Wooga said that he still considers Facebook to be the preferable platform, despite Google+'s appeal.
"Facebook you have 30 per cent revenue shares, and Google it's, initially at least, just 5 per cent. But to me all of this discussion about this revenue share is going a little bit in the wrong direction.
"To me it's not about what piece of the pie is for me, and what's for the platform provider, it's really about how big the pie is that you can create.
"I don't think the 30 per cent Facebook share is an issue," Begemann continued. "The whole Facebook platform is free, you've got tons of communication channels, you've got lots of viral communication to users, it's an amazing platform and you have traffic that's worth millions of dollars, and you get all of that for free. And only when you're successful do you pay your 30 per cent revenue share. So it's fair.
"We think Google+ is interesting and we thought we would give it a try and we're curious to see how it develops. But we remain very very committed to Facebook. We will not slow down there."