Mobiles top of Zuckerberg's growth strategy Mobiles top of Zuckerberg's growth strategy
Integration of online applications another aim
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 May 13, 2012
- Image Credit: AP
- The Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Facebook stock is expected to begin trading publicly on May 18. Market pros and average investors alike are sizing up the company’s strengths and weaknesses.
Palo Alto, California: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose limited role in promoting the No 1 social network's market debut has drawn criticism, laid out its growth strategy to investors on Friday, saying that transforming its mobile and advertising experience are top priorities in 2012.
Integrating online apps more strongly into Facebook is also a major goal, he told hundreds of investors at an event that capped the first week of Facebook's cross-country "roadshow" to pitch its highly anticipated initial public offering.
Facebook aims to raise about $10.6 billion (Dh38.9 billion), dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google and valuing it at up to $96 billion.
Zuckerberg, 27, who started Facebook in his Harvard dorm room eight years ago, said key priorities in 2012 were to improve its mobile application, to build stronger ties incorporating its social network with other online apps and to create a "transformative" advertising experience.
The company is "just getting started" with its mobile app, said Zuckerberg, who appeared on stage in a grey T-shirt and dark trousers at Palo Alto's Crowne Plaza, flanked by chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and finance chief David Ebersman.
With 900 million users, Facebook is the world's dominant social network. Zuckerberg was Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2010 and was depicted in the fictionalised 2010 movie The Social Network.
Transformation
"Over the next ten years or so, every consumer category should be transformed to be built around people," Zuckerberg told fund managers and Silicon Valley glitterati such as Netscape co-founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
"People will listen to music and watch TV with other people" through Facebook.
"We only recently reached this tipping point," Zuckerberg said.
"It is a bit of a celebrity event," said Alice Evans with London-based F and C Asset Management. "You're not expecting to learn that much but it's as close as you can get to kicking the tyres."
Question time
Zuckerberg made brief introductory comments at the event, which took place 13 kilometres from Facebook's new Menlo Park headquarters at One Hacker Way, before opening the session up to questions.
The company provoked some grumbles from investors last week, when it took limited questions from the audience at an event in New York.
Investors managed to get in more than ten questions at Friday's event, ranging from capital spending to regulation, even as Facebook maintained tight control over the proceedings, forbidding follow-up questions.
"They did a good job of addressing the tough questions. They have a clear vision," said one investor who attended the event but did not want to be named.
Price range: shares in demand
Wall Street had been concerned about the company's ability to wring revenue from mobile users, considered crucial for long-term growth, as well as slowing growth in Facebook's main advertising business.
But that may not dampen demand for shares of the high-flying web company, which is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is a business success story. On Thursday, a source said its IPO was already oversubscribed.
Facebook has indicated a price range of $28 to $35 a share (Dh103 to Dh129), valuing it at $77 billion to $96 billion.
https://gulfnews.com/business/technology/mobiles-top-of-zuckerberg-s-growth-strategy-1.1022008