Facebook shares dip to record low at $18.31

Facebook Inc fell to a record low on Friday after a pair of brokers heavily cut their targets on the stock, citing the combined weight of massive share lockups as also signs of a weakening advertising business at the social network.

In morning trades, Facebook FB shares were down over 4 per cent to $18.31,which represented an all-time low for a stock that has been losing ground steadily since its high-profile IPO in May, with the company's market value now less than half $38 per share set for its debut price.

Over 24 million shares traded hands during the first hour of trading, as against the stock's three-month daily average of 36.8 million.

According to analysts, the decline comes on a realisation that the company's revenue would not grow as rapidly as had been projected at the time of the IPO.
 
The company's second-quarter revenue was up 32 per cent from the same time last year, but though the rise was healthy, it was not quite as impressive as the growth that made internet search leader Google Inc a hot stock following its IPO in 2004.

While Google and Facebook were about the same size, Google's quarterly revenue was nearly doubling from the previous year.

Unlike the state of technology after Google's IPO, people are now increasingly surfing the web on mobile devices rather than on personal computers and that trend had posed a problem for Facebook as it tried to figure out how to display ads on the smaller screens of smartphones and tablet computers.