In the "competition" section of the SEC filing -- about a page long in the 207-page document -- Facebook breaks down the areas in which it competes:
Users and Engagement. We compete to attract, engage, and retain users. Because our products for users are free of charge, we compete based on the utility, ease of use, performance, and quality of our products.
Advertising. We compete to attract and retain advertisers. We distinguish our products by providing reach, relevance, social context, and engagement to amplify the effectiveness of advertisers’ messages.
Platform. We compete to attract and retain developers to build compelling apps and websites that integrate with Facebook. We compete in this area primarily based on the value of the tools and APIs we provide to developers to enable them to access our large global base of engaged users and their connections and to drive traffic to their apps and websites.
Talent. We compete to attract and retain highly talented individuals, especially software engineers, designers, and product managers. Competition for employee talent is particularly intense in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we are headquartered. We compete for these potential employees by providing a work environment that fosters and rewards creativity and innovation and by providing compensation packages that we believe will enable us to attract and retain key employees.
The section ends with Facebook asserting, "While our industry is evolving rapidly and is becoming increasingly competitive, we believe that we compete favorably on the factors described above."
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