Facebook has taken a step back after months, or even years, of achieving unprecedented success. The social networking giant has reported that they have taken a slide in its first quarter-to-quarter in two years.
This comes as the company prepares to go public in the biggest ever Internet initial public offering.
Facebook says that the decline was because of seasonal advertising trends. The company’s first quarter revenue fell 6% to $1.06 billion.
According to an analyst from Pivotal Research Group Brian Wieser, “It was a faster slowdown than we would have guessed. No matter how you slice it, for a company that is perceived as growing so rapidly, to slow so much on whatever basis – sequentially or annually – it will be somewhat concerning to investors if faced with a lofty valuation.”
The company is also facing other issues that may attribute to the slide. They are facing a lawsuit from Yahoo! for patent infringement. Last Monday, Facebook said that they are going to pay Microsoft a total of $550 million for hundreds of patents.
Facebook is expecting to raise about $5 billion in an IPO that could price the company at $100 billion.
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