Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Facebook Climbs 17% After Earnings Report



July 24, 2013
        Facebook(FB) reported its quarterly earnings report after hours today, with revenue rising over 50%! Its quarterly revenue came in at $1.813 billion, topping the Wall Street average estimate by $195 million. The company earned over $300 million this quarter, as opposed to the same period last year where the company faced a net loss. These numbers were surprising due to the fact that rivals Google and Yahoo recently reported disappointing revenue and outlooks this week. FB rallied nearly 20% after hours, rising from its close of $26.5 to $31. Mobile ad revenue grew strongly this quarter, rising to equal over 40% of the company’s ad revenue. This is up 10% from the previous quarter. Even though the company has faced rapid growth in mobile ads, Google still dominates with approximately a 50% market share of the nearly $9 billion market.
        Facebook has experienced a surge in usage, with nearly 700 million people using the website on a regular basis. This is a sharp rise from last year, when there were only 666.5 million regular users. As Facebook's user-base increases, so does its revenue from ads. Even with competition from startups, Facebook managed to increase mobile advertising revenue by 76 percent. The company has worked on increasing the number and types of advertisements, while maintaining the CPC value (cost-per-click). New ads that are present within users' feeds are being noticed, which has led to increasing clicking and more profit for Facebook. Users have complained to CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the presence of these ads, and he has stated that his company will strive to improve their quality so that they are more aesthetically pleasing.

        Facebook still faces stiff competition from smaller rivals and start-ups that are quickly gaining ground in the mobile advertising market. WhatsApp is a company that operates a "cross-platform mobile messaging app" that is available on Windows, Android, IOS, and Blackberry. It has shot up to be the #1 downloaded app on many of these platforms, gaining millions of users. Though this poses no immediate threat to Facebook, it shows the potential of smaller rivals to quickly gain market share in an online world. Blackberry has also released news that it plans on expanding the presence of Blackberry Messenger, or BBM, so that it is available on all platforms. BBM currently has tens of millions of active users daily, and opening the option to IOS and Android users would help it grow exponentially. This could very well put a dent into Facebook's revenue once it is released.


Sources:

http://finance.yahoo.com/

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