New York: Facebook is likely to generate more than $2 billion (Dh7.3 billion) in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Facebook, with more than half a billion users, has lured advertisers such as Coca-Cola, JPMorgan Chase and Adidas. Last year, Facebook may have generated about $2 billion in total revenue, three people said in December.

That would be more than double the $777 million in sales the company reaped in 2009, according to a person who viewed documents sent to potential investors in January.

"Right now, what I see is a total ‘Like' frenzy among the major marketers," said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at researcher EMarketer Inc. "Major marketers are looking at how to drive people to interact with them on Facebook. The advertising spending is probably going up as a result."

Facebook said in January it would probably surpass the threshold of 500 shareholders this year, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

The company announced in January that it raised $1.5 billion from investors led by Goldman Sachs, placing a $50 billion valuation on the closely held business at that time. T. Rowe Price invested at least $191 million in Facebook during the first quarter of this year.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Face-book expects adjusted earnings of more than $2 billion. Facebook is making sales gains in so-called display ads — the banners, videos and other graphical promotions that appear on websites.

Other revenue sources include virtual currency for games on Facebook. Ads will make up 90 per cent of revenue this year, down from 93 per cent in 2010, EMarketer estimates. "Facebook is particularly well positioned to grab a larger share of advertising dollars" as marketers shift spending to online ads, said Lou Kerner, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, in a report last month.

"As Facebook continues to grow its user reach and optimise its advertising offering, we expect that the company will increasingly close the gap between the user time spent on Facebook and the share of advertising revenue."