This just in, Microsoft has beat out Google and Yahoo, securing a deal with Facebook wherein Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebook’s next round of financing at a $15 billion valuation, and the companies will expand their existing advertising partnership.
Big news for Live Search, bigger news for adCenter. Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally in addition to the United States.
This is a major win for Microsoft and its advertising arm of adCenter and aQuantive as :
- Facebook is growing in both the U.S. and international markets; 59 percent of Facebook’s users are outside the U.S.
- With an average of 250,000 new users registering each day, Facebook continues to be one of the most-trafficked sites on the Internet.
From the press release:
“We are pleased to take our Microsoft partnership to the next level,” said Owen Van Natta, vice president of operations and chief revenue officer at Facebook. “We think this expanded relationship will allow Facebook to continue to innovate and grow as a technology leader and major player in social computing, as well as bring relevant advertising to the more than 49 million active users of Facebook.”
“Making this investment and expanding this partnership will position Microsoft and Facebook to better take advantage of advertising opportunities around the world, and is a great win for not only for our two companies, but also our collective users and advertisers,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft. “We have partnered well over the past year and look forward to doing some exciting things together in the future. The opportunity to further collaborate as advertising partners is a big reason we have decided to take an equity stake, and is a strong statement of our confidence in the long-term economics of this partnership.”
