Mobile ads help Facebook’s revenues soar
SOCIAL networking giant Facebook last night revealed bumper profits in the fourth quarter, with revenue surging 63 per cent, way ahead of analysts’ expectations.
Profit surged from the last quarter of 2012, up to $523m (£318m) from $64m. For the year, profits are more than 30 times as high as they were in 2012, ballooning from $53m to $1.5bn. Advertising revenue has surged by 76 per cent from the same period last year. More than half came from mobile devices compared to just 23 per cent a year ago. In total, the website generated over $1bn from mobile advertising.
Two years ago, Facebook had no revenue from mobile advertising sales. “2012 was the year we turned out core product into a mobile product, 2013 was the year we turned our business into a mobile business,” said founder Mark Zuckerberg.
He added “This is a great quarter and a great way to end the year”.
Overall, Facebook said it had 757m daily global users as of December 2013, up 22 per cent year-on-year.
The firm struggled with its public flotation in May 2012, and did not return to its initial offering price for over a year afterwards. Facebook’s share price rocketed 10 per cent, up to $58.90 in after hours trading last night.