Facebook's (FB) Slowing Growth Expected to Get Even Slower

Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) is seeing a rare up day Thursday amid news popular Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster talked up the long-term outlook of the company. However, another analyst is discussing the near-term outlook, and things don't look nearly as rosy.

EMarketer cut its 2012 sales estimate for the social network from $6.1 billion to $5.04 billion. Last year, Facebook posted revenues of $3.71 billion - suggesting growth of 36 percent versus growth of 64 percent. From 2010 to 2011, Facebook's revenues grew 88 percent. From 2009 to 2010, Facebook's revenue grew 154 percent.

Advertising sales growth is expected to slow to 34 percent in 2012 and 29 percent in 2013, EMarketer said, which compares to the more than 68 percent growth last year.

While a significant cut, EMarketer's new sale estimate is essentially in-line with Wall Street analysts - which are already at $4.93 billion on average for 2012 sales.

Shares of Facebook last traded at $19.15, up 0.3 percent.

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