Facebook racks up 27% revenue rise in India to Rs 123.5 crore

Facebook posted a 27% jump in its revenues in India to Rs 123.5 crore during the year to March 2015 from Rs 97.6 crore a year earlier, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies on Thursday. However, the social media firm earned less than Rs 9 per user on an average in the country, its second-largest market outside the United States, where it earned Rs 630 per user.

The revenue from India is negligible for the California-headquartered firm, which clocked $12.5 billion (nearly Rs 84,000 crore) in global sales and is pushing for a free internet plan in the country to take on search engine firm Google.

Facebook India's profit after tax rose 33% to Rs 16 crore during the year. Although Facebook has nearly 138 million users in India, its revenues are low here. That's because though most marketers have increased advertising spends on digital media, nearly 70% of that budget is spent on Google, which has seen its annual revenues swell to Rs 4,000 crore in the country after a decade of operations. An email sent to Facebook did not elicit any response.

According to experts, marketers are gradually looking to spread their budget across social media platforms and mobile applications. They said Facebook's latest venture, Free Basics, a plan to make parts of internet available for free by convincing local telecom companies such as Reliance Communications to cover data charges, could be a game changer.