Facebook's mobile ad sales in the fourth quarter of 2013 surpassed the company's expectations.
Amidst the confirmed news of a decrease in the number of its teen users, Zuckerberg's social networking site continued to soar high in the business. Its earnings report showed that it surprisingly surpassed the company's and its investors' expectations, thus proving that it can still generate more revenue from each its users.
On Wednesday, Facebook reported a 63 percent profit increase and a 700 percent increase in its fourth quarter profit, which increased the company's shares by 12 percent to $59.98. It also reported a billion increase in its revenue from $1.6 billion in the year 2012. Its market share increased from $64 million (3 cents per share) to $523 million (20 cents per share).
Also, taking away certain costs, the company would have profited 31 cents a share, topping expectations of 27 cents a share.
Facebook reported that 53 percent of the total Q4 revenue came from the mobile advertising. It has also taken 18 percent of the $16.7 billion global mobile-advertising market in 2013, said market research company eMarketer.
Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliot told the Wall Street Journal, "They know more about their users than any company has ever known about population." That statement was also backed-up by a recent study conducted by Adobe Systems Inc.
In the study, Adobe tracked the social networking site's advertising performance across its mobile and desktop platforms and confirmed that the social site is really doing a great job at mobile-advertising. However, the San Joes, Calif.-based computer software company cautioned about some things.
First, though Facebook generated the most "revenue per visit," it is still behind Pinterest and Tumblr. Adobe's senior marketing manager for digital index Tamara Gaffney also warned Facebook that there might be a "growth slowdown for Facebook coming in 2014, unless they do some things to refresh targeting, tools and visibility."
