Dropbox is a killer application if you have multiple computers or don't want to care about keeping backups. It's completely removed my need for flash drives, caring about which computer I have documents on, and so forth. I wouldn't underestimate that; I recall hearing that they've hit $100M/year in profits[1], and I expect that they've got quite a ways to grow. However, saying that they'll be the most profitable company in the world doesn't make sense to me - that would just take too much growth to be realistic.

For some context, the most profitable company in the world in 2010 was Gazprom[1], the largest exporter of natural gas in the world, with 24,555.7 million.

EDIT: Gazprom was the most profitable in 2009, not 2010, as pointed out below.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-revenue-2011-3

[2] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/perfor...

This is not something that will happen over night. You meant to say that Gazprom was the most profitable in 2009.

Exxon did $30B profit in 2010. - http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:XOM&fstype=ii

Exxon did $30B profit on $375B revenues. Net profit margins of less than 10%.

Of course we won't know until Dropbox releases their financials, but I strongly believe that they will be a bombshell when they are released. Nothing like anything we have ever witnessed.

I would not be surprised if their Net Profit margins are 30% - 50%.

At those rates, all it takes is for them to be doing revenues of $100B to exceed Exxon's profit take in 2010.

I know it seems a bit far fetched now, but so did every other technology giant when they were in the budding phases.

I think it would be foolhardy to bet against them.

Hmm. There are about 2 billion internet users, and Dropbox's cheapest paying plan is $99/year. Assuming 50% profit or so, and that no one buys the more expensive plan, it would take a billion paying customers to hit $100B/year, 50% of everyone with internet access. It would definitely be a gradual progression, but probably doable, especially if they branch out into other areas - though I can't think of anything obvious, other than licensing the technology to big businesses for internal stuff. Of course, they can certainly afford to experiment.

Well there are 2 billion internet users - i.e. individuals. But each individual has multiple functions.

E.g. I have a dropbox account at home, and had one for work. So did my boss, and some other coworkers.

So while there are 2 billion internet users, there are many organiztions - profit, non-profit, ngo, etc - which makes the pie even bigger.