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Facebook’s revenue rockets on strong growth
Facebook has reported a 186% year-on-year increase in second-quarter profits driven by a 63% rise in advertising revenue boosted by demand for video ads
Facebook has reported second-quarter revenues of $6.44bn, up 59% compared with the same period a year ago and $420m higher than market forecasts.
Advertising revenue was up 63% to $6.24bn, and accounted for 97% of the social networking company’s total revenue.
Profits were up 186% year on year to $2.06bn, while the number of monthly active users is up 15% to 1.71 billion, with 1.57 billion using mobile devices, an increase of 20% year on year and 91% of the total.
Facebook said daily users now number an average of 1.13 billion, an increase of 17% compared with a year ago.
With most users accessing Facebook from mobile devices, mobile advertising accounts for around 84% of total advertising revenue, up from around 76% in the second quarter of 2015.
“Our community and business had another good quarter,” said
In recent months, Facebook has introduced 360 video, which provides a 360-degree view of videos, and Facebook Live, which enables any Facebook user to broadcast video live to the world.
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According to eMarketer, Facebook’s global ad revenues will account for more than two-thirds of all social media revenue in 2016. The market research company estimates that Facebook’s figure for the year will hit $22.37bn, up from 2015’s $17.08bn.
Facebook’s results are in sharp contrast to those of Twitter, which has reported its slowest quarterly sales growth in three years, with revenue up just 20% year on year to $602m and a rise of just 3% in the number of monthly active users to 313 million.
Twitter is yet to make a profit, but it did manage to reduce its quarterly loss to $107m from $136m for the same period a year ago.
Although Twitter’s advertising revenue was up 18% to $535m, analysts said the company will find it difficult to attract advertisers without stronger growth in the number of users.
