Wednesday 23 June 2010 13.07 BST
Facebook's global dominance(支配地位) is almost complete with just Russia, Japan, China and Korea yet to be converted(转变) and the social networking giant aiming to reach 1 billion users, founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed today.
Zuckerberg, who said he had recently met Prime Minister David Cameron "for just a minute [when] he was busy rolling out(滔滔不绝地讲) the budget", also admitted that one day he could see Facebook floating on the stockmarket – just not anytime soon.
He added that there was "no chance" Facebook, which has cracked the 500 million user mark, would hit 1 billion this year but argued that "it is almost a guarantee(确保) that it will happen".
"If we succeed [in innovating and remaining relevant] there is a good chance of bringing this to a billion people… it will be interesting to see how it plays out," he said speaking to two packed auditoriums(观众席) – one via video link – at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
Facebook's global domination is almost complete, he said. "We are down to just four countries where we aren't the leading social network."
Zuckerberg added that in Russia Facebook had just 1 million users, the kind of numbers that saw AOL sell off Bebo and ITV relinquish Friends Reunited. But in Facebook's case, growth is "doubling every six months", according to Zuckerberg, and Japan and Korea have similar user bases.
He said that Facebook can tell when an explosive growth "tipping point" is about to be reached by who is "friending" who. When Facebook first launches in a country, nearly all the friend connections are with foreign Facebook users.
"We know that a country has tipped when local-to-local connections outnumber local to foreign," he added. "It is a long-term thing [and with regard to the four left to tip] we are probably not going to win in six months, not in a year [but] things look promising(有希望的) in three to five years out."
He also said that the company would make an initial public offering(首次公开发售). "At some point, sure," he said. "It is probably not that different [running a public company compared with a privately held one]." However, after many sceptical(不肯相信的) guffaws(狂笑) in the Cannes(嘎纳) audience he backtracked and said: "OK, I'm sure it is a lot different."