Facebook Q3 2014 Results, Revenue Up 59pct To $3,02 Billion

[engine]

An impressive growth in both revenue and in mobile usage.

Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) today reported financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2014.

"This has been a good quarter with strong results," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "We continue to focus on serving our community well and continue to invest in connecting the world over the next decade."


Facebook Q3 2014 Results, Revenue Up 59pct To $3,02 Billion [investor.fb.com]

Third Quarter 2014 Financial Highlights

Revenue - Revenue for the third quarter of 2014 totaled $3.20 billion, an increase of 59%, compared with $2.02 billion in the third quarter of 2013. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue would have increased by 58%.

Revenue from advertising was $2.96 billion, a 64% increase from the same quarter last year. Excluding the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, revenue from advertising would have increased by 63%.
Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 66% of advertising revenue for the third quarter of 2014, up from approximately 49% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2013.
Payments and other fees revenue was $246 million, a 13% increase from the same quarter last year.

Third Quarter 2014 Operational Highlights

Daily active users (DAUs) were 864 million on average for September 2014, an increase of 19% year-over-year.
Mobile DAUs were 703 million on average for September 2014, an increase of 39% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.35 billion as of September 30, 2014, an increase of 14% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs were 1.12 billion as of September 30, 2014, an increase of 29% year-over-year.

[YJunK]

The mobile advertising bit isn't surprising. Anyone using mobile apps would have noticed how much more mobile advertising there is now compared to even half a year ago.
Most of my successful ads on Facebook were for mobile. I would just like to know where these numbers come from in a little more detail. Like, what demographics brought in the majority of the growth.

[TheRealTerry]

I feel like the numbers Facebook and really anyone with mobile offerings purports are very much overstated in importance and value. If you take your mobile delivered ad performance numbers in the aggregate and compare them with your desktop ones you are likely to see extraordinarily high CTR in mobile as compared to desktop (something in the range of 10x) and exceptionally low conversion rate. You'll typically see the same thing in the numbers of any mobile delivered interruption ads. It's straight evidence of errant "fat finger" accidental clicks on mobile ads. It's a very real problem that represents a considerable amount of wasted spend for advertisers.

What concerns me is Facebook specifically is banking off these earnings reports under those false pretenses. They also push those mobile ad numbers around when trying to sell you on the mobile ad inventory. Our reps have always actively encouraged us to spend more on mobile, because that's where the inventory is they tell you. But, the truth is, you are paying Facebook 9 times for every actual real click.

Sometimes when I see every major new outlet parroting these stories about how Facebook mobile ads are just killing it with zero mention of the ugly truth that most of that spend and inventory is complete garbage it makes me feel like there is nothing resembling actual business journalism these days. Am I off base here? Is everyone else okay with paying mobile ad networks for people's accidental clicks and letting Facebook tout it to investors like it's a good thing? Sure, with optimization and lower bids you can make a mobile campaign's metrics fit your business objectives, and we do just fine with that ourselves, but it just doesn't sit well with me that my team's time and work is going into making Facebook's mobile product work in spite of the crap clicks, and Zuck gets to claim all that garbage as evidence of advertisers finding more value in their mobile offering.