Facebook Groups reaches 1 billion users

Facebook impressed Wall Street with its latest earnings report on Wednesday, sending shares up more than 8 percent after hours. The company generated a net profit of USD 2.27 billion or USD 0.79 per share, up from USD 1.52 billion or USD 0.54 per share a year earlier.

Fourth-quarter sales rose to $5.84 billion, compared with the $5.37 billion average analyst projection, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The social media site said mobile advertising now accounts for 80 percent of its revenue, and its dominance on the sector helped to dispel concerns over its heavy investment in virtual reality unit Oculus and messaging service WhatsApp. Still as advertising on it has improved and it’s increased its usage to more than a billion regular members, the money has been pouring in and now, for the first time ever, the social network has made a billion dollars profit in just the last quarter.

The company announced total revenue of $17.93 billion in 2015, this was up an impressive 44% over the previous year.

Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who returned from two months of paternity leave on Monday, has said virtual reality represents the next major computing platform. Average mobile daily active users came in at 934 million for December, up 25 percent year-over-year. Looking at monthly active users, Facebook grew by just under three per cent over the quarter to 1.59bn, with the fastest growth occurring in the Asia-Pacific, South American and African markets. Nevertheless, social networking continues to be Facebook’s foundation.

So what: Revenue in the fourth quarter jumped 57% to $5.8 billion, driven by continued growth in advertising sales.

They said Facebook’s photo-sharing service Instagram, in particular, was poised to become a material contributor to revenue in 2016.

The idea of having access and detailed information on consumers across the globe is one of Facebook best selling points for marketers.

“Certainly economic uncertainty in the broad macroeconomic environment affects all businesses, it affects our clients, it affects us, but that said we think we’re really well positioned to continue to take advantage of and double down on the shift to mobile which is happening”, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said.