Facebook Beats Expectations With Record Earnings

Facebook has pleased Wall Street after it revealed record financial results, thanks to its ongoing success in the mobile advertising space.

Investors were quick to react and its stock shot upward by more than 12 percent – from $53 (£32) to $60 (£36) – in after-hours trading on 29 January.

Positive Results

Facebook’s numbers revealed that in the Q4 2013, the social networking giant posted a net profit of $523 million (£316m), up from $64 million (£39m) in the same year ago quarter. There was likewise good news on the revenue side, after sales rose 63 percent to $2.59 billion (£1.6bn) from $1.59 billion (£962m) a year earlier. Meanwhile revenue for the calendar and fiscal year 2013 was $7.87 billion (£4.7bn), a substantial increase of 55 percent over 2012.

It was hardly surprising then that the results surpassed analyst expectations and proved to be the best-ever financial quarter for the 10-year old company.

The results also revealed other impressive figures, after advertising revenue was tabulated at $2.34 billion (£1.4bn), a whopping 76 percent increase year over year. The key to that big move: mobile ad revenue accounted for about 53 percent of the advertising total in the quarter.

Mobile Success

Meanwhile in an effort to prove that Facebook usage is not declining, the company revealed that its monthly active users totalled 1.23 billion, up 16 percent. It also said that its mobile monthly active users was 945 million, up 39 percent. This last figure also bypassed analyst expectations of 919 million mobile monthly users.

Facebook set out in 2012 to attack the advertising-on-mobile devices market, and results are clearly showing less than 12 months later. The company’s mobile advertising strategy, which some analysts believe should have been in place before it went public in May 2012, is now beginning to create some real income.

CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said on the conference call that “people are engaging more; millions more are hitting ‘like’ than in the past. Our main goal is to connect the world and build the knowledge economy.”

Zuckerberg said that in 2014 Facebook will focus on working with mobile operators to achieve that mission.

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