Facebook by the numbers: 845 million users sharing 100 billion friendships

As anticipated, Facebook filed its initial public offering late last night seeking $5 billion in funding. Inside its filed prospectus, Facebook revealed some great statistics; like how the company had reached 845 million monthly active users by December 2011 and how they shared 100 billion friendships.

Facebook users can’t stay away it would seem. In Decemeber 2011, the network had reached 483 million daily active users, with 360 million deemed active at least six days of the week. 845 million monthly active users by the end of last year amounts to a 39% increase on the previous 12 months. The figures also mean that Facebook is on track to reach one billion users by the end of August.

More than 425 million monthly active users, or a little over half of all monthly active users, accessed Facebook through one of its many mobile apps in December 2011. Facebook do not currently monetize mobile traffic so a little over half of Facebook’s revenue potential remains unrealised; something that it lists as one of its “risk factors”.

Facebook’s market penetration in the United States is at saturation point, reaching 161 million monthly users and representing a 16% increase on the previous year. Facebook has highlighted Brazil and India as two countries representing a “key source of growth”. It currently has 37 million and 46 million monthly active users in Brazil and India respectively, representing an increase of 268% and 132% on the previous year.

Regarding various regions around the world, Facebook has 179 million monthly active users in the US and Canada, 229 million in Europe, 212 million in Asia and 225 million in all other countries.

Facebook users Like and comment a massive 2.7 billion times per day, and upload 250 million photos in a similar period – or 2,894 photos every second.

In 2011, Facebook made $3,711 million in revenue, 85% of which was generated from its ad products. 12% of total revenue, which included payments processing and purchased advertising, came from a single games developer – Zynga.