Facebook has reportedly doubled its revenue for the first half 2011 to $1.6bn.
The social networking site does not disclose its financial results, but Reuters reported citing a source familiar with the matter that the net income of the company in the first half of 2011 came to nearly $500m.
Facebook has witnessed phenomenal growth over the years as competitors MySpace and Google’s Orkut struggled to survive. This year, Google launche dits ambitious social networking service, Google+, which is considered to the first potential rival of Facebook.
Earlier this year, there were rumours in the technology world that Facebook’s popularity in in established markets such as the US and the UK had reached its peak and even dropped.
Last month, Internet search tracker Experian Hitwise revealed that Facebook lost its market share of visits to reach 50.14%, its lowest since October 2009.
Experian Hitwise said that Facebook "suffered a significant loss of market share of visits this month dropping from 53.72% to 50.14% of all UK Internet visits to social networks."
"Facebook’s dominance of the UK social market hasn’t been this low since October 2009, when the network accounted for 50.46% of all visits to the category."
Recently, research firm Gartner said that users were getting bored with their favourite social networks. A new survey by Gartner found that 24% of the respondents use their favorite social media site less than when they first signed up.
However, Facebook, whcih is expected to gp public next year, has dismissed such reports.
In May, the company said that its own figures suggested that users are growing, adding it was "pleased with the growth."
A Facebook spokeswoman had said in a statement to AFP, "From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn’t designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook."
The statement added, "We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day."
The company also revealed that it had a user base of 750 million across the world.
The Reuters report today said that Facebook’s strong half yearly results has increased its valuation to nearly $80bn in private markets.
Facebook has not commented on its financial results so far.
