Facebook Beats Estimates With $4.04 Billion, Mobile Nearing 80 Percent

Facebook announced second quarter earnings this afternoon. The company posted revenues of $4.04 billion and beat analyst consensus revenue estimates for the quarter by about $50 million. Earnings per share also beat estimates, but relatively narrowly.

The bulk of quarterly revenue came from advertising ($3.82 billion), with a small amount ($215 million) from payments and other fees. Roughly 49% of revenue was generated in the US and Canada.

The company said that mobile ad revenue was 76 percent of total ad revenue, which was up from 62 percent a year ago. Mobile active users were 1.31 billion, up 23 percent. Daily mobile users were 844 million, a 29 percent increase, and mobile-only monthly users were 655 million.

Total monthly active users were just under 1.5 billion, which was up 13 percent year over year.

The company said that on average, it made $2.61 in ad revenue on each user worldwide during the quarter. In the US and Canada, the figure was much higher: $8.63.

Cash and cash equivalents were $14.13 billion at the end of the quarter.

Notes and selected observations from the earnings call: 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg: 

People spend a daily average of 46 minutes on Facebook and its associated family of apps.

He says that there are now more than 40 million active small and medium-sized business (SMB) pages on Facebook.

There are more than 1.5 billion searches on Facebook per day. Most are non-commercial, for “people and posts.”

Oculus will come to consumers in Q1 in 2016.

COO Sheryl Sandberg:

We continue to get more than one in five mobile minutes in the US.

“We have the best performing mobile ad products in the market.”

More than 40 million active SMB pages “and the number continues to grow.”

She makes a pitch that Facebook is the only platform that SMBs need.

Since launch of Conversion Lift . . . rapid adoption by brand marketers (re offline measurement).

CFO Dave Wehner: 

Mobile is the key driver of our revenue growth; revenue from PCs down.

Payments down based on decline in games played on PCs.

Company now has 10,955 total employees.

31% operating margin (GAAP)

Analyst Questions: 

Question about Oculus launch and use cases: Zuckerberg — Virtual reality (VR) is a richer way to share than video. Immersive 3D content the obvious next thing after video.

Question re advertising on Instagram: Sandberg — We’re going to be thoughtful about how we ramp revenue.

Question re whether Instagram will be used for different types of advertisers: Sandberg — Lots of verticals can use Instagram. “We see such engagement on mobile.” More apps helps us drive business results for more advertisers.

Video and mobile being emphasized repeatedly — broad-based consumer media advertising, but in a targeted way.

Question re monetization of Messenger and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg appeals for “patience,” as he says they’ll follow the path of News Feed and take a long-term view.

Lots of questions about “real-time usage” of Facebook and/or Instagram. Subtext: Is Facebook going after/going to kill Twitter?

“There’s no doubt mobile has a beneficial affect on Facebook engagement.”

Sandberg: Atlas is important in solving the measurement problem. Existing ad-serving platforms are flawed.

Sandberg: Over one million SMBs have posted a video on Facebook.

On the Buy Button . . . Sandberg: Buy button is about helping users buy from advertisers, “not from us.”

Sandberg: We’ll continue to develop our audience network.