1.A Single Seller Of A Product/Service In Its Industry
Facebook is the only Social Networking application/website that allows its users to share photographs, videos, text based statuses, send private messages to individuals, add and keep record of one’s friends/family for future interactions on the app, stream live videos, create groups or pages for their shared interests alongside other likeminded individuals, create business pages to allow customers to communicate directly with the company as well as to market new product or services. There are no other Social Networking Apps that offer all of these services concurrently.
2.Fixed Costs/Price Maker
Facebook is a free service for all of its users however it charges businesses to run media/text based advertisements on its platform. It is for this reason that many social networking apps are free to use because Facebook has set the benchmark for the price which makes it difficult for other apps to charge users for a monthly subscriptions if they are looking to generate income in different ways.
3.Absence Of Direct Competitors
Although Mark Zuckerberg named Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter as its competitors in the Technology industry, each of these Tech companies offer a completely different service and product focus than Facebook. Currently there are no substitutes for a similar experience or service that Facebook Provides.
4.High Barriers Set To Enter The Same Market.
It is quite clear that Facebook does not like competition so much that it acquires applications that it feels will take a large portion of its market share. When Instagram and WhatsApp first appeared in the Technological sphere, Facebook saw their potential to detract its users from their Social Network site and quickly bought those companies out.
Therefore, it is quite clear that Facebook is a monopoly in the social networking category even though it faces small competition from other technology companies. In the Technology Industry, Google ranked number 1, claiming $79, 4 Billion from advertisements revenue globally in 2017, while Facebook came in 2nd claiming a total of $67,4 Billion (Kollewe, 2017). Facebook attracted a stellar 2.13 billion monthly active users (MAU), while its competitors YouTube recorded 1, 5 billion MAU and Twitter recorded 33 million MAU in 2017. With that said, Facebook still remains the best and preferred social media network to grow one’s business and get qualified leads with relatively low advertising costs.
