You Earn Facebook An Average Of $1.21 Per Quarter

Facebook makes an average of $1.21 on you per quarter, depending on who you are and where you live according to documents filed today. Most of that goes towards running the site, as Facebook’s net income from January 1st to March 31st this year was just $205 million despite its total revenue of $1.058 billion. So while you are “the product” on Facebook, just like on any website or physical venue that makes money through advertising, don’t expect a check in the mail.

And thanks to your contribution, Facebook now values itself at $71.97 billion dollars. That’s based on what it paid for Instagram, which could end up being way more than $1 billion.

Here’s how that $71.97 valuation for the social network breaks down. Bloomberg Business Week reports that the total outstanding shares of Facebook number 2.33 billion. To buy Instagram, Facebook paid $300 million in cash plus 23 million shares of its stock that it valued at $30.89 each. Multiply 2.33 billion by $30.89 and you get $71.97 billion dollars.

That means the Instagram founders may have gotten a sweet deal, as the last SecondMarket auction of Facebook stock before the IPO saw shares priced at $44.10 for a total valuation of $102.8 billion. If the public Facebook stock price reaches the SecondMarket level once the company IPOs, the stock paid for Instagram would be worth $1.014 billion. That would make the total price paid for Instagram $1.314 billion.

Back to how much you’re worth to Facebook. Its global average revenue per user (ARPU) of $1.21 per quarter went up 6% since the end of the first quarter of 2011. That’s still down 10% from the last quarter of 2011 when the holiday season led brands to buy more ads and led users spend more on virtual goods. If Facebook made the exact same amount per user for the next three quarters (it will make more), you’d be worth $4.84 a year.

Now to keep growing its business, it will need to earn more per user by showing them more accurately targeted ads that advertisers will pay more for, or it needs to sign up more users. The latter is getting tough, as with 901 million users, one in 7.7 people on Earth uses Facebook every month.

More big Facebook news from today:


Facebook Buys AOL Patents From Microsoft For $550 Million In Cash

