Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) is scheduled to release its first-quarter financial results after the markets close on Wednesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for earnings per share (EPS) of $0.62 on $5.26 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, the company posted $0.42 in EPS on $3.54 billion in revenue.
The huge social media leader last posted gigantic numbers that truly blew away most of Wall Street. Facebook has Instagram, in which some analysts see revenues tripling in 2017 over 2016, and Premium video and Graph Search capabilities to strengthen the social media giant’s earnings flow. Top analysts have noted in the past that Facebook and Instagram account for 5% of users total media time, but the company doesn’t come close to capturing 5% of total advertising budgets. Instagram advertising opened up in the fourth quarter. The company reported revenues for that period that were 10% ahead of many Wall Street estimates.
Most Wall Street analysts point to the fact that Facebook remains the top beneficiary of the adoption of mobile internet trends with total U.S. internet time spent on Facebook and Messenger. Other metrics continue to explode, and the key is that no viable challengers are anywhere in sight. Wedbush thinks the company once again beats estimates, citing the mobile advertising growth and overall innovation at the company.
Analysts also remain bullish on Facebook Live, which was first rolled out only for iPhone users with verified accounts — a designation limited to journalists, celebrities and other public persons — but now anyone with an Android or iPhone can shoot live video from their phone, which can be viewed by Facebook users on any platform. To use it, you just go to the place where you would normally post a status update, but press the icon that shows a person inside a circle. This is yet another huge add-on for the social media market leader.
So far in 2016, Facebook has more or less performed in line with the broad markets, with the stock up nearly 4%. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up about 33%.
Shares of Facebook were trading down 1.2% at $107.50 Wednesday morning, with a consensus analyst price target of $135.30 and a 52-week trading range of $72.00 to $117.59.
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