The Future of Facebook Advertising Isn’t in the United States

[Commentary] Facebook makes about half of its advertising revenue outside of North America, but its business is disproportionate to its user base. Roughly 85 percent of Facebook’s users are outside of the United States and Canada, established markets where the company’s growth is slowing. Facebook has nearly 2.5 times as many users in Asia-Pacific (APAC) than it does in North America, yet APAC generates less than a third of North America’s revenue. The point is that APAC and other “emerging markets” like India, Brazil and parts of Africa are growing a lot quicker for Facebook than the US or Europe.

In the first three quarters of 2015, Facebook added 73 million users in APAC; it added just 23 million across the US, Canada and all of Europe combined. Fast forward five, 10 or 15 years down the road and it’s possible (probable?) that those emerging markets — the areas of the world where millions of people are coming to the Internet for the very first time on mobile phones — will be Facebook’s most important markets. That’s why Facebook’s emerging markets team exists, and why it is spending so much time getting people Internet access through its Internet.org initiative. The idea that regions like India and Brazil may be anchors for Facebook’s bottom line a decade from now may sound obvious, but actually mining those countries for ad dollars isn’t necessarily simple.