Facebook is due to report its Q2 results – and no doubt eyes will be fixed on revenues earned from advertising – mobile in particular. In the lead up to this, Twitter’s Biz Stone has suggested Facebook could earn at least $12 billion per year by offering users the option of signing up for an ads-free experience at a cost of $10 per month, i.e. FB could potentially earn three times more revenue from such a service than it reaped from advertising last year ($4.3 billion). Stone based this on a minimum of 10% of Facebook’s 1.1 billion user base ‘buying in’ to the option.
But would users really be willing to pay for this and if so, how much would they consider to be reasonable? Speculating on this at the turn of the year, leading London-based independent digital marketing agency, Greenlight, polled 500 people globally to gauge just how much they would be prepared to pay NOT to see ads on FB. Data from Greenlight’s “Search & Social Survey (2012-2013)” showed 15% of users would be prepared to pay to see no ads with the majority, 8%, indicating they would be willing to spend $5 right up to $10 and even over, per month.
JP Morgan expects Facebook’s advertising revenue to rise 40% on the previous quarter to reach $1.39 billion, with mobile accounting for a third ($446 million).
