Facebook will be 12 years old this upcoming fourth of February 2016. It is hard to imagine that what was once a website set up by a group of undergrads in a Harvard dormitory in 2004 would lead to the creation of an entirely new form of communication – social networks. While social networks were not entirely new with Bebo and MySpace predating Facebook, it was Facebook that broke the mold and influenced an entire generation.

Eight years later, when Facebook filed to go public on the first of February 2012; while incredibly popular, it was still just a single website and an app. Even as it moved for IPO status the experts were unsure if it would ever be profitable. Fast forward to 2016 and 1.5 billion people use the main core Facebook service which continues to grow. Perhaps most interesting is the evolution of Facebook since its IPO whereby it evolved into an entire eco-system. Within this eco-system live its users and these include; 900 million WhatsApp users, 400 million Instagram users, 700 million Messenger users and 700 million users in Groups.

The success of Facebook can be seen in some of the key statistics that surround it. As a company it runs four of the six largest social media networks in the world. In terms of user engagement, it is wildly successful being the largest social network in the world which is evidenced by the fact that on a single Monday in August 2015, one billion people used the service. Mobile is big for Facebook and the revenue generated from it, in fact, seventy-five percent of its $4.3 billion in advertising revenue came from mobile users in the third quarter of 2015.

2015 was a very solid year for the company who introduced a flurry of new updates such at its news service called ‘Instant Articles’, its online shopping offering called ‘Digital Storefronts’ and its artificial intelligence personal assistance in the form of ‘Facebook M’. The company has come a long way since its humble beginnings in its Harvard dorm room and its future is very bright. To learn more about how the company has evolved and where it is going in the future, have a look at this infographic created by One Productions for some fascinating facts.