Facebook aiming for 1 billion users

Facebook continues its move towards market domination, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying it could be the first social networking site to reach 1 billion users.

The website currently has 500 million users, but Zuckerberg is confident Facebook can reach 1 billion once it conquers the relatively small number of countries that are yet to fully embrace the site, the New York Post reported.

Zuckerberg told the audience at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France that China, Japan, Russia and South Korea were the only countries where Facebook wasn’t the social networking site leader.

“While Facebook has fewer than 1 million users in Russia, the growth rate is doubling every six months,” he said.

Facebook opened an office in Moscow in April and opened discussions with local mobile phone operators as part of a project to expand in Russia.

Zuckerberg said Facebook wouldn’t reach the 1 billion mark this year but it “has a decent shot” down the line, the New York Post reported.

But he said reports the company would hit US$1 billion ($1.14 billion) in revenue this year were possible.

“Now what I would say is that the estimates are not so far off in either direction that it’s causing us any pain, so we feel no need to correct it,” Zuckerberg told Inside Facebook, a blog dedicated to the site.

Inside Facebook estimated the site’s revenue in 2010 will be between US$1 billion and US$1.1 billion ($1.32 billion).

Facebook passed Yahoo! in May to become the top US publisher of display ads on the Web. Online tracking firm ComScore said the social networking site delivered 176.3 billion display ads to US users in the first three months of the year, a 16.2 percent market share, more than double its 7.5 percent share of a year ago, AFP reported.