Ads Keep Facebook's Revenue High
Facebook posted another quarter of strong revenue growth, fueled by its mobile advertising business and an increase in daily users. The company on Wednesday reported revenue of $4.5 billion in the third quarter, up 41 percent from $3.2 billion a year ago. Net income was $896 million, or 31 cents a share, up from $806 million, or 30 cents a share, a year ago.
Facebook said mobile advertising now accounted for 78 percent of ad revenue, up from 66 percent a year ago. The number of daily active users of the service also exceeded one billion for the first time, up 17 percent from a year earlier, with mobile users up 23 percent to 1.4 billion.
"We had a good quarter and got a lot done," Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, said in a statement. "We’re focused on innovating and investing for the long term to serve our community and connect the entire world."
Facebook is also the owner of mobile messaging app WhatsApp, which has a base of more than 900 million global users but does not bring in any revenue. Facebook has also bought Oculus VR, the virtual reality hardware start-up, for roughly $2 billion. The company is also in the midst of building an airborne drone, one capable of delivering Internet access to parts of the world that are not easily receiving it.
And of course, Facebook's Instagram photo-sharing network is very succesful having 400 million users but Facebook has not taken advantage of its large user base yet, at least by directly offering them ads.