As it enters adolescence, propelling it into a better standing to challenge Google as the Web ‘s most effective business, Facebook is growing at an extraordinary rate.

Facebook’s fourth quarter report Wednesday supplied the latest gauge of the remarkable strides of the company’s.

It marked the very first time that the quarterly sales of Facebook has surpassed $5 billion – more than evanescing Internet star Yahoo creates in a whole year.

Although Google stays three times bigger by sales, the gap has been closing as it sells more mobile advertising on its addictive social networking program. And it is only starting to mine sales from a fast growing video library as well as its fashionable Instagram service.

This springtime’s introduction of the Oculus Rift headset, part of the virtual-reality technology that Facebook purchased for $2 billion in 2014, could start another money-making marketplace. Google is currently hiring more virtual reality specialists, a signal that’s attempting to catch up with Facebook in a still-nascent field which could transform computing.

Social networking stays the foundation of Facebook.

“I am excited about our advancement as well as the opportunity to develop something perfect for the future,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts in a Wednesday conference call.

That makes it improbable that Google will topple .

Powered by the planet ‘s dominant Internet search engine, Google sells the digital marketing by a large margin. When Alphabet is scheduled to only how much more will be revealed Monday declared its fourth quarter gains. Alphabet is likely to report fourth quarter earnings of almost $17 billion, after subtracting advertising fees, almost triple what Facebook created during an identical three-month interval.

But contemplate this: At exactly the same period of its own existence in September 2010, Google’s net sales stood at $5.5 billion.

What is more, the earnings of Facebook is increasing at a rapid clip than Google’s was at a similar period. Facebook’s sales in the previous quarter represented a 52 per cent increase from the exact same time. When it turned 12 years old, 25 per cent increased from the prior year.

In a different indication of the advancement of Facebook, its share of the electronic marketing marketplace grew from 8 percent in 2014 to 10 per cent world-wide last year, in line with the research company eMarketer Inc.

That is still plenty of earth for Facebook to make up, but it is possible, given the digital dossiers that it’s compiled about its users’ fires, camaraderie and other services they see while signed into the social networking service.

All that information could help Facebook deliver advertisements tailored for every person’s interests better than Google has done by examining e-mails, search requests and people’s places, eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.

“They’ve shaken up multiple kinds of companies and totally altered the way people communicate.”

Google knows better than to blow off the danger presented by Facebook. After Google was smaller than Yahoo. It did not take long for Google to trounce Yahoo, partially because its competition focused on being on an all purpose destination while overlooking the money-making business of search advertising. By comparison, Google has been vigilant about protecting its search company while developing Android YouTube and other popular goods like Gmail as well as the Chrome browser.

Investors are betting on both firms. Facebook’s stock rose 34 percent this past year, while Alphabet’s stock (once Google’s) soared 47 per cent.