Is Facebook Growing Too Fast?

July 26, 2017 by Chris Lange

Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) released its most recent quarterly results after markets closed Wednesday. The social media giant said that it had $1.32 in earnings per share (EPS) and $9.32 billion in revenue versus consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that called for $1.13 in EPS and $9.2 billion in revenue. The second-quarter from last year had $0.97 in EPS and $6.44 billion in revenue.

During the quarter, daily active users (DAUs) were 1.32 billion on average for June 2017, an increase of 17% year-over-year. Monthly active users totaled 2.01 billion, up 17% from last year.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 87% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2017, up from approximately 84% of advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2016.

Average revenue per user seems to be slightly slower than wall st analysts expected. Essentially this is a good problem to have. Facebook has penetrated markets like India, but has yet to monetize its marketplace in those countries yet. So in a nutshell, Facebook’s users might have grown faster than predicted taking away from the average revenue stat across the board.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, commented:

We had a good second quarter and first half of the year. Our community is now two billion people and we’re focusing on bringing the world closer together.

Headcount at the company increased 43% year over year to a total of 20,658.

On the books, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaled $35.5 billion at the end of the quarter, compared with $29.4 billion at the end of the previous fiscal year.

Shares of Facebook closed Wednesday at $165.61, with a consensus analyst price target of $172.47 and a 52-week range of $113.55 to $166.17. Following the release, the stock was initially trading down 0.4% at $164.93 in the after-hours trading session.

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