Following up on my earlier post about Google’s results and how analysts are blaming their inability to monetize mobile –
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg would like you to know his company is monetizing mobile just fine, thanks.
Facebook posted its Q3 results Tuesday, in which overall ad revenue grew 36% to $1.09 billion (€842 million), compared to 28% growth in Q2. And 14% of that came from mobile ads, Reuters reports:
Mobile ad revenues totaled roughly $150 million, up from an estimated $40 million to $50 million in the second quarter and almost nothing in the first.
"This certainly dispels the most bearish view, that Facebook couldn't monetize people on phones or tablets," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert Baird & Co.
"In about a six-month period they've actually started to generate decent revenues form their mobile applications," Sebastian added, though he said Facebook still needs to show that its mobile ads can command the same rates as its traditional ads and that they can deliver results for marketers.
Also, some instructive details from GigaOM:
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said mobile users were engaging with those mobile ads eight times more often than desktop ads and brand recall was 10 times as good. And David Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer, said news feed ads are now generating $4 million a day in revenue, with 75 percent of that from the mobile newsfeed. That’s up from $1 million a day at the end of the second quarter, with half of it from mobile.
Some other numbers via sister site FierceMobileContent:
Facebook now touts over 1 billion users, with 600 million of those users accessing the social networking platform via mobile. Facebook's mobile monthly active users (MAUs) reached 604 million during the quarter, an increase of 61 percent year-over-year. Last quarter, Facebook reported 543 million mobile MAUs.