Facebook’s third quarter financials ever so slightly topped Wall Street estimates. The social network reported revenue of $1.26 billion on the quarter ending September 30, just north of analysts’ predictions of $1.23 billion. Earnings leveled out at 12 cents per share after excluding one-time charges, beating estimates of 11 cents a share profit.
It’s good news for Facebook as their stock value has taken a serious hit since the initial public offering in May. Zuckerberg and company said revenue from advertising increased 36 percent year-over-year. At the same time, expenses jumped 64 percent to account for additional payroll and infrastructure improvements.
Facebook surpassed the one billion active user mark earlier this month but there are some other key highlights from the quarter worth mentioning. As of September 30, the site had 604 million active mobile users, good for a 61 percent increase compared to the same time a year ago. If you recall, mobile is one of Facebook’s key strategies moving forward.
Monthly active users were tallied at 1.01 billion at the end of the third quarter. This is a 26 percent increase year-to-year. Broken down further, the social network is used by 584 million people on a daily basis, up 28 percent from the same time in 2011.
Facebook still has a lot of work to do to convince investors that they can reverse a slowing revenue growth. New features like promoted posts and Facebook Gifts will help the social network bring in more money but whether it will be enough to keep investors happy remains to be seen.
