Facebook's financial report shows solid growth, strong sales numbers
What's the story
Beating analysts' estimates social media platform Facebook has reported a solid quarter banking on the demand for its mobile ads and the ability to garner new users with its suite of apps. The social media giant showed $9.32 billion revenue in the second quarter, rising 45% from the $6.43 billion that was noticed during the same period last year. Here's more about it.
Ad
Mobile ads are growing
Mobile ad sales on Facebook's own platform as well as on Instagram are flourishing. In the latest quarter, mobile ad revenue constituted 87% of total ad sales, up from 85% noticed in the previous quarter. As per forecasting firm eMarketer, the social media giant's ad revenue is expected to be around $36.29 billion this year i.e. 35% more than that of 2016.
Profit
It's still consolidating avenues
Facebook showed a profit of $3.89 billion, making a jump of 71% from the earlier year's profit of $2.28 billion. Second-quarter expenses totalled 33% more than what it was during the same period last year to $4.92 billion. Monthly active users were up 17% y-o-y from the same period last year and now stands at 2.01 billion.
Investors
Investors had worries earlier
In the previous year, Facebook had informed that the volume of ads that it shows users will not be as big a revenue growth factor as it was last year. It also mentioned that 2017 expenses will be more, as the firm will engage in building new data centers, buying original content and recruiting fresh talent. But numbers have now put investors at ease.
Emerging markets and Instagram, two major money churners
Facebook's drive to convert small and medium businesses into advertisers is paying off and currently, more than 70 million businesses have pages on its platform. It enjoys more than 5 million active monthly advertisers and 1 million of them are from emerging markets. Instagram is also doing brisk business and according to eMarketer, it's expected to garner $3.92 billion revenue worldwide in 2017.