Facebook could thank mobile for its after-hours stock jump

Facebook stock is up nearly 10 percent in after-hours trading after the company announced its third quarter earnings. The company beat market expectations, but the Wall Street love may be coming from its hope for Facebook mobile.

Facebook made 14 percent of its advertising revenue from mobile this quarter. This comes after Facebook introduced a new iOS app that finally took care of a number of paralyzing problems.

In the last quarter, Facebook saw a 61 percent increase in its mobile monthly active users — up to 604 million as of the end of this quarter.

It seems the company is starting to focus mostly on the small screen. Facebook’s vice president of mobile partnerships, Vaughan Smith, recently said Facebook is thinking “how can we create the right mobile experience first and the desktop can catch up later.”

This is a good lift for Facebook whose stock has been a fairly tumultuous ride for investors.

The company otherwise had a fair quarter, with $1.26 billion in revenue. Revenue from advertising brought in 86 percent of that total. Facebook also closed its Instagram deal in this quarter and launched Gifts, a product that lets you buy physical items for people on the social network and share them to the recipient’s Timeline. Many think this could be a new revenue product for the company.

FB data by YCharts

Mark Zuckerberg image via Flickr