Facebook is making friends in the growing mobile sector, according to an earnings report published Wednesday by the social media company, which had a busy quarter expanding into e-commerce and virtual reality.
The social media giant’s revenue grew during the three-month quarter that ended June 30, rising to $4 billion compared with $2.91 billion for the same period last year.
Expenses for the company’s new products, however, took a bigger bite out of its profits, resulting in a net income of $719 million compared with $791 million for the same quarter last year. Advertising is the main source of income for Facebook, and last year mobile became its dominant platform for ads.
Its Web audience also grew to 1.49 billion monthly active users as of June, with 1.31 billion monthly active users for its mobile application.
“Mobile revenue grew 74 percent year over year, making it three-quarters of total ad revenue,” Sandberg said.
During the same quarter last year, mobile ads generated 62 percent of Facebook’s total advertising revenue. The company aims to expand its audience by growing the amount of worldwide Internet users through its Internet.org partnership with technology companies, including Nokia and Samsung.
The program launched a year ago in Zambia and has spread to 17 countries, helping 9 million people gain access to basic Internet services, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the earnings call.
“Facebook has clearly become the home for global conversations about things that people care about,” Zuckerberg said.
A new online portal unveiled by Internet.org on Sunday aims to make it easier for mobile operators in foreign countries to integrate with the partnership.
The growth of the Internet in recent years has been fueled by the proliferation of inexpensive mobile devices, according to a report by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency.
outside the U.S. are more likely to access the site through Indeed, Facebook usersits mobile app, according to digital research firm eMarketer. This is especially the case in India, where 95 percent of Facebook users are expected to access the site through their phones in 2015, compared with 85 percent for U.S. users.
The growth of Facebook abroad is significant because it could give people an inexpensive way to promote their businesses and a means to voice political opinions in nations with heavily censored mainstream media, as it and other social media sites did during the Arab Spring protests that helped topple repressive regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.
ref:Us news
