Facebook has increased its revenues a 295% to the $1.18Bn in 2nd Q 2012 from the $895 million obtained in the same period last year. Zuckerberg has managed also to rise ad revenues coming from advertising a 28% to $992 million, compared to the 2nd Q in 2011.
But costs and expenses got 295% higher than in 2011.Capital expenditures for the quarter were $413 million, which means a 213% year on year increase and the company declares $52 million in new equipment financed by capital for this period.
The result of the fast rise in Facebook’s costs is a net income loss of $157 million compared to the $240 million income obtained in the same period 2011. Operative margin has sunk to a negative 63% compared to the positive 45% obtained in 2011.
In this context Marc Zuckerberg (CEO and Founder of Facebook) said: “Our goal is to help every person stay connected and every product they use be a great social experience,”
“That’s why we’re so focused on investing in our priorities of mobile, platform and social ads to help people have these experiences with their friends.”
Nice objective, but companies seem not interested, at least not at the pace that Facebook increases and enhances the offer.
Ad improvements
Facebook lists two major devlopments in this period. First, the company has expanded the rollout of Sponsored Stories in News Feed and enabled advertisers to buy Sponsored Stories in mobile News Feed.
Facebook now has also independent ROI data from more than 60 advertising campaigns using a range of third-party methodologies like panels and marketing mix models -this is teh secon improvement-.
The results show, says teh company, that 70% of campaigns resulted in a return on ad spend of 3x or better, and 49% of campaigns showed a return on ad spend of 5x or better.
Mobile developments
Facebook launched several new mobile products, including: a new Facebook Camera app for iPhone; an improved version of the mobile messenger app for both iOS and Android, and several updates to the Facebook Android app.
The comapny launched global App Center where users can discover relevant apps for mobile and web.
Apple announced plans for a deep Facebook integration throughout the next version of Apple’s iOS and OSX.
A 67% increase in mobile Facebook monthly users
The social network posted monthly active users (MAUs) at 955 million as of June 30th, 2012,which means a 29% year-over-year increase.
Daily active users (DAUs) were 552 million on average for June 2012, an increase of 32% year-over-year. Mobile MAUs were 543 million as of June 30th, 2012, an increase of 67% year-over-year.
No information on fixed to mobile accessd use transfer has been provided by the company. There’s no information on total net users increase.
Anyway mobile seems actually pushing ahead the use of this already mature social network.
Some agreements and purchases during the period
Facebook announced proposed acquisition of Instagram, a popular photo-sharing app.
The company also entered into a definitive agreement with Yahoo! to settle all pending patent claims between both multinationals and deepen the companies’ current business partnership.
The social network began serving users from its new data center in Forest City, N.C. All these agreements and data center enhancement needed for investment.
Cash and marketable securities grew, following the data provided by Facebook, to $10.2Bn, including $6.8Bn in net proceeds from its initial public offering.
With the numbers in the hands, and bearing in mind that advertising contributes in a 84% to total revenues of the company, one must wonder if Facebook isn’t perhaps developing a lot faster than what the digital social ad market is still able or prone to swallow.
Imagen sobre el titular.- Mark Zuckerberg (founder, Chairman and CEO of Facebook). © Facebook.
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