Facebook made about $2 billion in revenue in Q4 2013. It’s ability to monetize its user base is by now unquestionable. But how exactly do different portions of its user base contribute to revenue?

As shown in the graph below, Facebook ARPU all over the world has been increasing steadily. While there have inevitably been quarter-to-quarter fluctuations, the 4 quarter trailing average shows that ARPU has followed a steady upward trend. In Q1 Facebook made $5.85 per user in the US and Canada, $2.44 per user in Europe, $0.93 per user in Asia and $0.71 per user in the Rest of the World.

Growth has also been rampant, especially in Asia and the RoW as rising internet penetration rates drive Facebook into the lives of a larger and larger number of users. There are now 390 million users in Asia, 395 million in the RoW, 289 million in Europe and 202 million in the US and Canada.

This data makes for two important observations -

• A Facebook user in the United States is worth nearly 6 times as much as an Asian user.
• There are 2 users in Asia for every user in the US.

If you were to control for number of users, this still means that users in the US are worth 3 times as much as users in Asia. It therefore appears that its success as an advertising company has been heavily dependent on the US, Canada and Europe. Its fastest growing user base is also its least monetized. What should Facebook do to change this ? Have organizations with similar models managed to monetize globally? Lets take a look at Google.

This graph from Asymco shows that in spite of having 88% market share in search and 78% market share via Android, Google has struggled to increase ARPU outside the US and the UK. The contribution of the RoW to Google’s revenue surpassed the US for the first time last year but even if you were to control for number of users, US and UK ARPU would still be in many multiples of that of the RoW. Finally countries such as India and Russia rank second and third respectively in terms of search usage.