Facebook's Amended S-1: 901 Million Users, 500M Mobile, Paid $300M Cash + 23M Shares For Instagram
Facebook has just filed a fourth amendment to its S-1 to IPO that notes that it now has 500 million mobile users, 901 million monthly active users, and that it paid 23 million shares at $30.89 …
Context & Ripple Effects
The fourth S-1 amendment lands two weeks before the roadshow and updates the picture Facebook first laid out in its March amendment, where it added mobile ads, disclosed its Zynga dependence and flagged Yahoo's patent claims. What is new here is granularity: 901 million monthly actives with a hard 500 million mobile split, plus the actual Instagram consideration — roughly $300 million in cash and 23 million shares at $30.89 each, a deal already closed and carrying a reported $200 million breakup fee if it unwinds.
The same-day filings also show Facebook shoring up its flanks while the IPO window is open: syndicated coverage pegs self-valued worth near $77 billion with yearly growth of 45% but decelerating quarter-over-quarter, and Microsoft's confirmed $550 million purchase of part of the AOL patent portfolio — a portfolio Facebook reportedly bid for and lost — removes one litigation vector before public-market scrutiny begins.
First-order effects
- Investors now get the mobile denominator they lacked: half of Facebook's 901 million monthly actives are on mobile, making the gap between usage and monetization the central question of the offering.
- Zynga's contribution is pinned at 15% of Q1 revenue, down from 19% a year earlier — diversifying away from a single games partner becomes a stated metric rather than an open risk.
Second-order effects
- Yahoo's patent pressure gets answered through the market rather than the courtroom: Microsoft's acquisition of the AOL portfolio hands Facebook a licensing counterweight, raising the cost of further suits against pre-IPO platforms.
- Instagram's all-stock-heavy structure — 23 million shares at $30.89 — ties the acquisition's final value directly to Facebook's IPO pricing, so any roadshow stumble reprices a closed deal in public.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, late-stage consumer platforms will keep disclosing mobile share as a separate line item, forcing acquirers and advertisers to price mobile audiences distinctly from desktop inventory.
- Pre-IPO disclosure cadence itself becomes a strategic tool: amendments that surface user counts, supplier concentration and patent posture let a company shape its own diligence narrative before underwriters lock the story.
The trend: Facebook's successive S-1 amendments are turning mobile scale — not desktop reach — into the number its valuation will be argued over.