Mobile saves the day: Facebook surpasses revenue expectations

Facebook had a pretty great quarter thanks mostly to mobile.

The company today posted its second fiscal quarter earnings with revenue of $2.910 billion, a 61 percent increase from Q2 2013, and 30 cents in earnings per share.

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Analysts expected Facebook to report revenue of $2.81 billion and earnings of $0.32 per share for the June quarter.

The company also posted $2.676 billion in advertising revenue, up from $2.265 billion in the previous quarter and a 67 percent increase from the same quarter last year. Mobile advertising revenue now represents 62 percent, or roughly $1.66 billion, of the company’s total when it comes to ads — leaving desktop in the dust.

Clearly, this quarter is all about advertising dollars. Facebook launched app install ads in 2012, which resulted in 350 million downloads, and it recently introduced its mobile ad network, first announced at this year’s f8 conference, to shift its focus to the mobile advertising market.

Some mobile advertising numbers from eMarketer:

• Facebook accounted for a 17.77 percent share of worldwide mobile ad spending in 2013, eMarketer estimates, up from a 5.37 percent share in 2012. EMarketer estimates that Facebook will increase further to 22.3 percent this year, compared to Google, whose market share is expected to remain relatively flat around 50 percent. The worldwide mobile ad market totaled $17.71 billion in 2013, according to eMarketer, expected to grow another 84.7 percent this year to reach $32.71 billion.
• Facebook accounted for 15.8 percent of all mobile ad dollars spent in the U.S. in 2013, according to eMarketer, up from 9 percent in 2012. EMarketer estimates that Facebook‘s US mobile ad share will grow again in 2014 to 18.4 percent. Mobile advertising totaled $9.69 billion in the U.S. in 2013, and will increase 83 percent to reach $17.73 billion this year, according to eMarketer. Google remains the dominant firm in the US mobile ad space and took in 41.5 percent of all net U.S. mobile ad revenues in 2013.

Facebook posted the following user growth and engagement numbers:

• Daily active users (DAUs) were 829 million on average for June, an increase of 19 percent year-over-year.
• Mobile DAUs were 654 million on average for June, an increase of 39 percent year-over-year.
• Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.32 billion as of June 30, an increase of 14 percent year-over-year.
• Mobile MAUs were 1.07 billion as of June 30, an increase of 31 percent year-over-year.