Facebook’s Quarterly Sales Top Estimates on Strong User Growth
Facebook reported higher than expected quarterly revenue and profit on Wednesday, driven by a steady rise in advertising and user growth.
Facebook is under antitrust investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice and a broad group of U.S. state attorneys general. However, the probes haven’t scared off advertisers, though, and sales jumped to the company’s highest ever for any single quarter.
Ad sales jumped about 28% to $17.38 billion in the third quarter. Facebook’s growth is likely being fueled in part by ads inside its Instagram photo-sharing app.
Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 94% of Facebook's advertising revenue for the third quarter of 2019, up from approximately 92% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2018.
Costs surged about 32% to $10.47 billion.
Monthly active users rose to 2.45 billion. In Q3, Facebook added about 35 million new users to its main social network.
Daily active users (DAUs) were 1.62 billion on average for September 2019, an increase of 9% year-over-year.
Facebook estimates that around 2.2 billion people now use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger every day on average, and around 2.8 billion people use at least one of the company's services each month.
Net income rose to $6.09 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, from $5.14 billion a year earlier.
Total revenue rose about 28% to $17.65 billion.
Facebook's headcount was 43,030 as of September 30, 2019, an increase of 28% year-over-year.
The company also said Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the company’s lead independent director, is stepping down from the board.