Facebook Inc. (FB) Reaches Mobile Mark; ‘Tremendous Opportunity’

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) was beleaguered and beaten up for most of the last three months, which has driven the stock from its $38 IPO share price down to less than $18 a share this week. Now that it has been knocked to the ground, several analysts and others have been working to pick it up and make it a new buying opportunity. After a couple of Jefferies analysts gave a “buy” rating to Facebook earlier today, the president of CoRise and a Facebook shareholder also gave his endorsement on a cable business TV show today and Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) reached a mobile milestone.

While Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has more than 900 million users and still growing, the company reached a milestone this week as the number of active mobile users surpassed 543 million. This is a growth of more than 11 percent from the 488 million users at the time of the company’s IPO in mid-May. Mobile devices with the Android operating system by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) makes up about 21 percent of the mobile users, with the iOS by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) making up 19 percent. The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad, however, has seen the most growth at 45 percent since the IPO of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) stock.

With this growth in mobile, Bob Peck of CoRise sees possibilities for Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), even going so far as to call the stock a “tremendous opportunity.” In an interview on CNBC the Facebook shareholder and CoRise president said, “If (Facebook) just got 2 percent of their 500 million people that live on Facebook every single day to buy something through an Amazon store on Facebook, right there that’s $6 billion gross revenues, of which Facebook would get $1 billion or so in commissions. … I think the big thing is it’s a show-me story. This is a tremendous opportunity. We think they’ll execute again.”

That may be good news for investors in Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) stock, such as hedge-fund manager George Soros of Soros Fund Management.