Facebook Sales Beat Expectations

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On Wednesday, Facebook released its financial report for the first quarter of 2013, and revenue beat analyst expectations. However, earnings came in just slightly below Wall Street estimates.

Bloomberg’s Brian Womack reported, “Facebook Inc. (FB)’s first-quarter sales topped projections, a sign that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is making headway in a drive to make more money from mobile advertising. First-quarter sales rose 38 percent to $1.46 billion, Facebook said in a statement yesterday. That compares with the average analysts’ estimate of $1.44 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Profit excluding certain items was 12 cents a share, compared with an average prediction of 13 cents.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Evelyn M. Rusli commented, “What a difference a year makes for Facebook Inc. Twelve months ago, the social network barely had a mobile business. On Wednesday, Facebook disclosed how that has changed: Nearly one out of every three dollars it produces now comes from advertising on smartphones and tablets…. Facebook’s mobile-ad sales jumped 22% to $374 million from the prior quarter. The company said mobile-ad sales now form 30% of advertising revenue, up from 23% in the fourth quarter and 14% in the third quarter.”

Tomio Geron with Forbes noted, “For daily active users, Facebook had 665 million on average in March, which was up 26% from a year ago. Monthly active users were 1.11 billion, up 23% from a year ago. In its prior quarter, daily active users were up 28% year-over-year and monthly actives were up 25% year-over-year. Mobile monthly active users in the first quarter were 751 million, up 54% from a year ago and up sequentially from 680 million in the fourth quarter.”

And eWeek quoted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said, “We’ve made a lot of progress in the first few months of the year. We have seen strong growth and engagement across our community and launched several exciting products.”