Facebook’s 2Q Earnings, Revenue Soar

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) —

The world’s largest online social network posted sharply higher earnings on Wednesday, as revenue from mobile advertising continued to grow, along with its user base.

Facebook Inc. said Wednesday that it earned $788 million, or 30 cents per share, in the April-June period. That’s up from $331 million, or 13 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Adjusted earnings were 42 cents per share, handily beating Wall Street’s expectations of 33 cents, according to a poll by Zacks Investment Research.

Facebook’s revenue jumped 61 percent, to $2.91 billion from $1.81 billion, from the same quarter a year ago. Analysts had expected $2.8 billion. This was the fifth quarter in a row that Facebook beat Wall Street’s forecasts.

Advertising revenue jumped 67 percent, to $2.68 billion. Mobile-ad revenue, a closely watched figure, was $1.66 billion, or 62 percent of Facebook’s total advertising revenue for the quarter. In the first three months of the year, mobile ads accounted for 59 percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue.

The steady increase indicates that Facebook is succeeding in steering advertisers to its mobile platform at a time when most of its users are using mobile devices to access the social network.

Facebook had 1.32 billion active users at the end of June, up 14 percent from a year earlier. On average, 829 million people used Facebook every day in June, up 19 percent from a year earlier. The average number of people who logged in at least once a day on mobile devices was 654 million in June, up 14 percent from a year earlier.

By the close of Wednesday trading – before the results came out – shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company had climbed $16.64, or 30 percent, to $71.29 since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index had climbed 7.5 percent. The stock had more than doubled in the last 12 months.

 

 

 

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