Facebook Inc (FB) 3Q Earnings Beat Estimates; Stock Climbs

Facebook

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) reported financial results for the third quarter that beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

The shares of the social network giant closed $103.94 per share, up by 1.33%. Facebook’s stock price increased further by 3.59% to $107.70 during the extended trading around 5:41 PM in New York on Wednesday.

Facebook financial results

Facebook posted earnings of $0.57 per share for the third quarter, up from $0.43 per share in the same period a year ago. The social network giant said its total revenue was $4.5 billion, up from $3.2 billion last year.

Wall Street analysts expected Facebook to deliver earnings of $0.52 per share on $4.37 billion in revenue.

According to the social network giant, its daily active users (DAUs) increased 17% to $1.01 billion. Its mobile DAUs climbed 27% to 894 million. Its monthly active users (MAUs) rose 14% to$1.55 billion and mobile MAUs grew 23% to 1.39 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We had a good quarter and got a lot done. We’re focused on innovating and investing for the long term to serve our community and connect the entire world.”

Commenting on the financial performance of Facebook, Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co., told Bloomberg, “Their core mobile-advertising business is still very strong and has a lot of runway. That has bought them time to be patient around these newer initiatives.”

Facebook is expected to capture 17.4% of the global total mobile-ad market, which is projected to reach as much as $72.1 billion this year, according to data from EMarketer.

Facebook will continue investing in the future

Facebook CFO David Weiner said the company will continue investing in virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other initiatives for future growth. He said, “We are investing aggressively in the future. We see great opportunities.”

The company has been investing in internet.org to provide internet access to billions of people worldwide. In July, Facebook’s Connectivity Lab completed building its full-scale drone called Aquila, which was intended to provide internet access to people located in the remote areas of the world.