Facebook earnings top Wall Street estimates

Facebook headquarters is seen in Menlo Park, Calif. / Stephen Lam/Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO Facebook (FB) reported third-quarter earnings that came in slightly above Wall Street's estimates, and said that 14 percent of its ad revenue now comes from mobile devices.

Adjusted earnings per share came in at 12 cents in the third quarter ended September 30, a penny higher than analysts were expecting. Revenue rose more than 32 percent from the year-ago quarter, to $1.26 billion. That was also a bit higher than the Street's estimates.

Facebook's stock, which has been trading around $19 a share -- half of its May IPO price of $38 a share -- closed up slightly today at $19.42. Shares jumped more than 7 percent in after-hours trading.

In a statement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg cut right to the issue on Wall Street's mind: Mobile.

As proud as I am that a billion people use Facebook each month, I'm also really happy that over 600 million people now share and connect on Facebook every month using mobile devices," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "People who use our mobile products are more engaged, and we believe we can increase engagement even further as we continue to introduce new products and improve our platform. At the same time, we are deeply integrating monetization into our product teams in order to build a stronger, more valuable company.

The company will hold a conference call at 2 pm, and analysts will want Zuckerberg and his team to reveal more about the effectiveness of its ads. Even as Facebook is taking steps into new areas -- such as Facebook Gifts and Facebook Offers -- Facebook is for now almost entirely an ad business. There are high expectations from Facebook Exchange, which lets advertisers better target users on Facebook by tracking what else they do across the Web.

• Facebook quietly phases out FB Questions
• Suddenly, Facebook seems all about the money
• Facebook VP says the company is focused on mobile

Revenue from advertising was $1.09 billion for the quarter and made up 86 percent of the company's total sales. Payments and other fees -- that's largely money from people playing Zynga (ZNGA) games -- made up the rest.

Here are some highlights from the quarter:

• Mobile active users (MAUs) were 604 million as of September 30, 2012, an increase of 61% year-over-year
• Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.01 billion as of September 30, 2012, an increase of 26% year-over-year
• Daily active users (DAUs) were 584 million on average for September 2012, an increase of 28% year-over-year

This post by Paul Sloan originally appeared on CNET.

[KimmoMustonenen]

Facebook needs to be addicted to monetization now which is terrible for the user. The biggest problem for Facebook going forward will not be revenue growth. Facebook's biggest problem is that it has become irrelevant.
http://*********.com/blogs/onmedea/2012/10/04/facebook-is-irrelevant/

[hypnotoad72]

Facebook's users are not people. They are products being sold.

it's the marketing/monetization that props up Facebook (as does corporate welfare)...

http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/02/facebooks-dubious-social-mission.html

[Chris0201]

This is quite impressive. Facebook should expect a huge boost in stock, and then after lock ups expire, the anticipation if fb falling into the single digits will not as drastic. I think Facebook will be worth $40 in a year or two, they are only framed as a bad company due to their 40% stock drop, but they are overall, a great company.

[hypnotoad72]

What if Facebook doesn't get what you think it's going to expect to get?

How is Facebook (an "it", not a "they", Facebook isn't unionized or a person as such), as you claim it to be, "great"?

Do you not know how it makes its money? Hint, it's "wealth redistribution" and I don't mean "corporate welfare". Ask the guy who saw his visage on a dating site, sued, and lost because he signed over his rights... if you think that's "great"...