Facebook had another blockbuster fourth quarter, raking in record revenues of $2.59 billion — a 63 percent increase over the same quarter last year.
The social network’s results surpassed Wall Street’s expectations of $2.33 billion and earned the firm 31 cents per share.
While its net income dipped to $523 million from the previous quarter’s $621 million, it was still up 700 percent from the fourth quarter in 2012.
Mark Zuckerberg
Once again, it was advertising that propelled Facebook to break its own revenue record. Advertising revenue skyrocketed 76 percent from the same quarter last year to sit at $2.34 billion. That amount was helped along by the company’s mobile advertising revenue which made up 53 percent of the total — a 23 percent jump over the previous year.
“It was a great end to the year for Facebook,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “We’re looking forward to our next decade and to helping connect the rest of the world.”
Facebook also released its total for 2013. Revenue for the full year came in at $7.87 billion, a 55 percent year-over-year increase, while net income hit $1.5 billion.
The social network also reported 757 million daily active users, on average, for the month of December — a 22 percent year-over-year increase.
Zuckerberg, during the company’s earnings call with analysts, said the mobile launch of Graph Search will be in the near future.
“Pretty soon, I think, you should expect us to roll out the mobile version of this,” Zuckerberg said. “I think that that’s going to be an important step because most of the usage of Facebook overall is on mobile, so we expect that that’s where engagement will really start to come from on Graph Search over time.”
Graph Search combines users’ phrases to give personalized search results.
For instance, using Graph Search, a user can type in queries like: NFL fans who live nearby? Photos of Melbourne, Australia? Friends who live in New York? Good Italian restaurants in Chicago? and get answers based on his or her social circle.
