Facebook reported its 2017 first quarter earnings today. Here’s what you need to know:
Facebook reported GAAP earnings per share of $1.04 on revenue of $8 billion, up 49 percent year-over-year. Analysts expected earnings per share of $0.87 on revenue of $7.84 billion. (Note: Facebook announced today that the company no longer reports non-GAAP expenses, income, tax rate, and earnings per share)
Facebook has now exceeded earnings expectations in 19 of its 20 reports since going public in 2012. It is also the sixth straight quarter of Facebook growing revenue by more than 49 percent year-over-year.
Facebook's Q1 Revenue:
2017: $8.0 billion
2016: $5.4 billion
2015: $3.5 billion
2014: $2.5 billion
2013: $1.5 billion
2012: $1.1 billion— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) May 3, 2017
Facebook is closing in on the 2 billion milestone. The company added 80 million users this past quarter and now has 1.94 billion monthly active users (up 17 percent) and 1.28 billion daily active users (up 18 percent). That also exceeded analyst expectations of 1.91 billion monthly active users and 1.26 billion daily active users.
The world has around 7.5 billion people — and 25 percent use Facebook at least once per month.
Facebook’s mobile business continues to roll. Mobile advertising revenue, which came in at $6.6 billion, now accounts for 85 percent of Facebook’s overall revenue (total revenue from advertising came in at $7.86 billion, up 51 percent year-over-year).
Facebook's Mobile Ad Revenue:
(as a % of total revenue)Q1 2017: 85%
Q1 2016: 82%
Q1 2015: 73%
Q1 2014: 59%
Q1 2013: 30%— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) May 3, 2017
Facebook did not report user growth numbers for mobile-only users; it did in past quarterly reports.
Facebook mobile ad rev. as % of total sales has flattened. Q1 number 85%.
Prior two qtrs was 84%, 84%. It had been growing steady. $FB— johnshinal (@johnshinal) May 3, 2017
Shares were flat in after-hours trading. Facebook’s stock is up nearly 30 percent in the past year:
Employee growth: Facebook added 1,700 employees last quarter, a new record. Total headcount is up to 18,770, up 38 percent from this time last year.
A statement from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “We had a good start to 2017. We’re continuing to build tools to support a strong global community.”
A busy quarter: Facebook rolled out a series of new services and products this past quarter, like Messenger Platform 2.0, and also provided updates about more long-term projects like a “silent speech” interface that can decode human thoughts and convert them to text. In February, Zuckerberg penned a 6,000 word letter about what Facebook is working on.
This past quarter, Facebook also dealt with controversy surrounding its live video platform, Facebook Live, after several incidents of violence — including murder — were streamed by users.
“We have a full roadmap of products to help build groups and community, help build a more informed society, help keep our communities safe — and we have a lot more to do here,” Zuckerberg said at the company’s annual developers conference last month. “We’re reminded of this this week by the tragedy in Cleveland. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Robert Godwin Sr., and we have a lot of work and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.”
In response, Facebook on Wednesday announced that it will hire 3,000 people to its community operations team that will help review reports of inappropriate content.
