Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) reported its fourth-quarter financial results after the markets closed on Wednesday. The social media giant posted $1.41 in earnings per share (EPS) and $8.81 billion in revenue, compared with consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that called for $1.31 in EPS and $8.51 billion in revenue. The same period from last year had $0.79 in EPS and $5.84 billion in revenue.
Mobile advertising revenue represented roughly 84% of all advertising revenue ($8.63 billion) for the fourth quarter, up from 80% of advertising revenue last year. If one company has managed to dominate mobile, Mark Zuckerberg and his team fit the bill. In fact, the after after-hours reaction appears to be an all-time high for Facebook stock
Operating margin for the quarter was 52%, an incredible gain from 44% that we saw in the same quarter in 2015.
The company said that in December 2016 it had an average of 1.23 billion Daily Active Users (DAU), an increase of 18% from last year. Mobile DAUs were 1.15 billion on average in this same time, an increase of 23%.
Monthly Active Users (MAUs) totaled 1.86 billion as of December 31, 2016, up 17% year over year. During the same period, Mobile MAUs totaled 1.74 billion an increase of 21%.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, kept it short and sweet, commented:
Our mission to connect the world is more important now than ever. Our business did well in 2016, but we have a lot of work ahead to help bring people together.
Zuckerberg’s statement was not that much longer than his statement from last November when addressing the company’s third quarter earnings. He said at that time:
We had another good quarter. We’re making progress putting video first across our apps and executing our 10 year technology roadmap.
On the books, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaled $29.4 billion at the end of the quarter, versus $18.4 billion at the end of the previous year.
Shares of Facebook closed Wednesday up 2.2% at $133.23, with a consensus analyst price target of $ and a 52-week trading range of $ to $. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was initially up 2.9% at $137.15 in the after-hours trading session.
As expected, there has been no real focus made by Facebook itself on the ongoing fake news trend. That may change in the conference call and in more addresses ahead.
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