Facebook revenues near £3bn as firm reaches 1.55bn users

The number of daily active users of the service also exceeded 1 billion for the first time, up 17 percent from a year earlier, with mobile users up 23 percent to 1.4 billion.

Facebook Inc on Wednesday posted surprisingly strong profit and revenue growth as the world’s largest social network grew even larger, with a spike in mobile users and advertising that lifted its stock to an all-time high.

Mobile DAUs – Mobile DAUs were 894 million on average for September 2015, an increase of 27 per cent YoY. People visiting the Facebook site at least once a month stood more than 1.55 billion people, up by 14 percent from a year ago.

Interestingly, despite Facebook’s soaring revenues, which are now $12.08bn for the first nine months of 2015, compared with $8.61bn in the same nine months a year ago, overall income for 2015 is down from $2.23bn to $2.12bn.

“We had a good quarter and got a lot done”, Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, said in a statement.

The Facebook shares have jumped over five percents after hours trading as it has beaten Wall Street’s analysts expectations.

Facebook said its ad business now generates $10.49 per user in Canada and the US.

He also revealed the firm planned to improve its video offering.

“Over the next few years, video is going to be important – and we want to become one of the best places to share it”.

According to the Q3 earnings report, Facebook has had revenue of $4.5 billion (£2.95bn), which represents a 41 per cent increase year-on-year, and a significant increase on $4.37 billion (£2.82bn) – the analysts’ prediction. Most of these users are now accessing the social media network from mobile devices. “Our community now has more than 1.55 billion people, including more than 1 billion people active every day”.

Total costs and expenses surged 68 percent to $3.04 billion, as Facebook increased its spending on research and development as well as on marketing.

And market analysts expect that revenue stream to keep growing.