FACEBOOK INC posted a 32 per cent jump in third-quarter revenue to $1.26 billion (€970 million), as the company reignited advertising growth with the help of larger-than-expected gains in mobile.
The company’s shares leapt 9 per cent to $21.22 in after-hours trading yesterday.
Advertising revenue increased 36 per cent year-on-year to $1.09 billion, while revenue from its payments and other businesses increased just 13 per cent to $176 million.
Mobile revenue made up 14 per cent of total advertising sales, which analysts said came in above their expectations.
“Advertising revenue from mobile was the number that really stood out,” said Sterne, Agee Leach analyst Arvind Bhatia. “They are saying mobile ad revenue was 14 per cent of total ad revenue. That would be about $140 million and I was expecting $40 or $50 million from this.”
Mobile advertising has been among the key investor concerns hanging over Facebook, the world’s No 1 online social network with more than one billion users.
As consumers increasingly access the social network with their smartphones, Facebook has struggled to bring its advertising business to mobile devices.
“We’re really focused on accelerating the adoption of ads into mobile so we have been introducing more ads into the feed of different types,” Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters in an interview yesterday.
