Facebook beats profit estimates
October 28, 2014
In September, about 1.12 billion people on average connected with Facebook using smartphones or tablet computers - a 29 percent increase from users signing on with mobile platforms from the same month in 2013, according to an earnings report released on Tuesday. That helped the social network to beat Wall Street's estimates in reaching 630 million euros, or about 23.5 cents per share, in profit for shareholders on revenue of 2.5 billion euros.
"This has been a good quarter with strong results," Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday in a release. "We continue to focus on serving our community well and continue to invest in connecting the world over the next decade."
Facebook took in $2.96 billion from advertising during the quarter, a growth rate of 64 percent, with approximately two-thirds of that revenue coming from mobile devices. Facebook shares, which have reached near-record levels in recent days, dipped by 1 percent to $79.99 in electronic trading after the figures were announced.
The company continues to look for ways to reach new markets such as by expanding Internet access in India.
Disappointing results for Twitter
Up the road from Silicon Valley, the San Francisco-based microblogging website Twitter, a Facebook rival, has taken longer than expected in its efforts to improve user engagement and growth rates, prompting a wave of rating and price target cuts on the stock. Twitter's shares fell 14 percent to a near four-month low of $41.80 in early trading on Tuesday. Up to Monday's close, the stock had already fallen about 24 percent this year.
On Monday, the microblogging website announced that timeline views per user, an engagement measure, fell 7 percent in the third quarter. Twitter's user base grew at a slower rate of 23 percent in the quarter, raising concerns that the social network had lost ground to mobile services such as WhatsApp and Instagram as well as to bigger rivals such as Facebook - which happens to own those two platforms.
Twitter had enjoyed a user growth rate of 39 percent in the quarter before it went public in November last year.
mkg/pfd (Reuters, AFP, AP)