Dive Brief:
- Following a quarterly earnings beat that sent shares up more than 5% in extended trade on Wednesday, Facebook reported it has reached over 1 billion daily active users – a milestone for the world's largest social network.
- Interestingly, Facebook also reported that 78% of its ad revenue now comes from mobile devices, a 73% increase from a year ago. Ad revenue generated from desktop devices actually slipped 8%.
- Facebook also reported monthly active users have risen to 1.55 billion and mobile monthly active users are now at 1.39 billion.
Dive Insight:
As Facebook continues its growth, its eyes are primarily on mobile and video.
One goal the company outlined was to improve ad targeting across its platforms and plans to continue experimenting with fresh ad formats, such as its already successful carousel ads, as well as invest in its ad tech. Facebook hopes that with its wealth of data and targeting abilities, more advertisers will look to them to spend their mobile advertising budgets.
Given that 75% of U.S. consumers’ time on mobile is spent on just four apps – two of which are social networks Facebook and Instagram – increased attention and ad dollars spent on social ads are further fueling mobile’s growth. According to eMarketer, Facebook is expected to make up 17.4% of global mobile ad spend this year.
“Their core mobile-advertising business is still very strong and has a lot of runway,” Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co., told Bloomberg.
With regard to video, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors he has "a pretty clear roadmap" for what it plans to do to spur video growth over the next two years. Daily video views have reached 8 billion, but Zuckerberg's goal is to help users discover video more easily.
Zuckerberg also said the "Target Rating Point" ad buying option has helped enable advertisers to compare their TV ad purchases to their Facebook ones.
