Facebook's User Growth Overtime

People have their doubts about Facebook. The tech team at Axios (Ina Fried, Sara Fischer and Ashley Gold) did an in-depth investigation, and found that the business is really booming. Take a look at the chart below, which shows the regional growth over the last decade.

Yet the stock price has not done all that well, and Facebook does not appear on Fortune's annual list of most-admired companies. Apple has topped the chart for the 14th year in a row.

Hot button issues like the 2020 ad boycott, their role in the US Capitol siege, or the company's high-profile battle with Apple over tweaks to iOS have dimmed their popularity with investors. There are also fears that changes to internet privacy laws will hurt its ad business in the long-term.

I'd say that we should ignore those issues. Keep your eyes on the prize - an ever growing user base and strong revenue streams. Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the management team will navigate us around the icebergs.

The Facebook group has 3.3 billion regular users (half of humanity) who are pretty keen to keep using their services. The four main platforms (regular older-person Facebook, WhatsApp, messenger and Instagram) are all doing well. They have a very powerful advertising business. Instagram in particular is a wonderful sales platform. Stay with this one.