VOA慢速英语:Facebook Stock Goes on Sale

Facebook is the world’s biggest social network. It has over nine hundred million users worldwide. And it reported three point seven billion dollars in sales for last year.
Facebook是全球最大的社交网络，它在世界各地拥有超过9亿用户。据报道，其去年的收入就达到了37亿美元。

The company has been privately held since two thousand four. That was when Mark Zuckerberg and several classmates at Harvard University started Facebook as a business. But on May eighteenth, Facebook becomes a publicly traded company. That means its shares will be listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, and sold to the public.   
从2004年以来，该公司一直是私人所有，当时马克•扎克伯格和几名室友在哈佛大学创办Facebook。但在5月18日，Facebook成为一家上市公司，这意味着它的股票将出现在纳斯达克证券交易所，并向公众出售。

Interest in the stock has been building since Facebook announced details of its initial public offering, or IPO, earlier this year. The IPO will make billionaires of the company’s founders, including Mr. Zuckerberg. Eduardo Saverin, a co-founder, has been strongly criticized for giving up his United States citizenship. He will avoid a fifteen percent tax on the value of his shares by claiming to be a citizen of Singapore.
从Facebook今年早些时候宣布首次公开募股(IPO)的细节以来，其股票已引起了人们的兴趣。首次公开募股将使包括扎克伯格先生在内的几名公司创始人成为亿万富翁。创始人之一的Eduardo Saverin因放弃美国公民身份而一直备受指责，由于声称自己为新加坡公民，他将免于缴纳他所持有股份15%的税收。

This week, Facebook told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it wanted to increase the number of shares being offered to over four hundred twenty million. The company had earlier said it planned to offer three hundred thirty-seven million. The starting price has been set at between thirty-four and thirty-eight dollars -- also an increase. Now, some financial experts say Facebook could raise sixteen billion dollars, making it one of the biggest IPOs ever.
本周，Facebook向证券交易委员会表示，希望将股份数目增加到4.2亿份，此前该公司曾表示，计划出售3.7亿份股份。在24-38美元的初始定价也有所增加。目前，一些金融专家称，Facebook将能募资160亿美元，成为有史以来最大规模的公开募股。

Facebook says most of its money comes from online advertising. But the company also says it expects to earn money from fees charged on the sales of virtual goods. These are digital products used in social games, not physical goods. Facebook says it sees important income coming from this new market, which could reach fourteen billion dollars by twenty sixteen.
Facebook称其大部分的收入来自在线广告。但该公司也表示，希望从虚拟商品销售中收取费用，包括社交游戏中使用的电子产品，而不是实物商品。Facebook称从这一新市场中看到巨大收入来源，到2016年可达到140亿美元。

Not everyone is pleased. General Motors ended its advertising agreement with Facebook this week. The carmaker said it did not see results from the millions of dollars it spent on advertising with Facebook.
并不是每个人都为此高兴，通用汽车本周终结了与Facebook的广告协议。该汽车制造商称在Facebook上的数百万美元广告支出不见成效。

And Facebook has been criticized for some recent business decisions. It offered one billion dollars to buy Instagram, an application for sharing photographs. The deal requires government approval and has yet to be finalized.   
Fcebook也因最近的一些商业决策而受到指责，该公司曾提出以10亿美元的价格收购 Instagram，这是一款用来共享图片的应用程序，这项交易需要政府批准，目前尚未完成。
 
So is Facebook worth the price of the stock? That will be for investors to decide.
 因此，Facebook值这个股价吗？那将由投资者来决定。