Mobile advtg helps Facebook record solid growth in 2016
Facebook continued its growth drive in the last quarter of 2016, on the back of mobile advertising and new users signing up on its various suite of apps. “Our mission to connect the world is more important now than ever. Our business did well in 2016, but we have a lot of work ahead to help bring people together,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.
The company’s total revenue grew by 51 per cent year-over-year to USD 8.8 billion in Q4 2016, and advertising revenue was up 53 per cent to USD 8.6 billion. In December, 1.23 billion people used Facebook on an average day, up 189 million or 18 per cent compared to last year. About 1.86 billion people used Facebook during the month of December, up 269 million or 17 per cent compared to last year.
Mobile ad revenue reached USD 7.2 billion, up 61 per cent year-over-year, and was approximately 84 per cent of total ad revenue, up from approximately 80 per cent of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Full year 2016 revenue was USD 27.6 billion and grew 54 per cent or 56 per cent on a constant currency basis, and we generated over USD 10 billion in GAAP net income.
Mr Zuckerberg addes, “This was another good quarter and a good end to 2016. Our community continues to grow, and now with nearly 1.9 billion people using Facebook every month and more than 1.2 billion people using it every day. We’ve seen continued growth and engagements on our platform, and our ads business is doing well, too.”
David Wehner, Chief Financial Officer, Facebook said, “Mobile continues to drive our growth, with 1.15 billion people accessing Facebook on mobile on an average day in December, up 212 million or 23 per cent compared to last year. Mobile ad revenue was USD 7.2 billion, up 61 per cent, and represented approximately 84 per cent of total ad revenue. Desktop ad revenue grew 22 per cent, despite a decline in desktop usage, helped by our efforts to limit the impact of ad blockers on advertisements served on personal computers.”
Addressing the ad metrics issue, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook said, “We know that measurement is important to building advertiser trust. Last year, we discovered several metrics issues. And while no billable metrics were affected, we took action to fix the errors and reviewed all of our metrics. We also expanded our partnerships with third parties, given the important role they play in verification. We’re going to continue to invest in measurement, including third-party partnerships, in the upcoming year.”
The company’s other apps also saw a robust growth. Around 400 million people now use voice and video chat on Messenger every month, while WhatsApp reached 1.2 billion monthly users. Around 50 billion messages are sent through WhatsApp every day, the company data showed.
Mr Zuckerberg revealed the company’s five-year game plan and said, “We’re going to keep building ecosystems around our apps that a lot of people are already using. Growth and engagement on Instagram have been strong. We announced in December that Instagram now has over 600 million monthly actives and recently passed 400 million daily actives. Instagram Stories reached 150 million daily actives just five months after the launch, and we’ve added new features like Boomerang and Live into Stories and I’m excited to see that continue to grow.”
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