Facebook 3Q results fly past expectations

Facebook's stock is soaring after the company reported a 60 per cent revenue increase in the third quarter, surpassing Wall Street's expectations for the second quarter in a row.
The world's largest social network said yesterday that it earned USD 425 million, or 17 cents per share. That's up from a loss of USD 59 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
Shares of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook jumped USD 5.22, or 10.7 per cent, to USD 54.23.
Adjusted earnings were USD 621 million, or 25 cents per share in the latest quarter, 6 cents better than analysts expected. This figure excludes special items, mainly stock compensation expenses.

Revenue grew 60 per cent to USD 2.02 billion from USD 1.26 billion, helped by increasing mobile advertising revenue.
Analysts, on average, were expecting revenue of USD 1.91 billion, according to FactSet.

Facebook's advertising revenue was USD 1.8 billion, up 66 per cent from a year ago. Mobile ads accounted for 49 per cent of the company's total ad revenue during the quarter.
In the second quarter, mobile ads amounted to 41 per cent of the total. The increase shows that Facebook's strategy to become a "mobile-first" company is paying off.
Facebook went public in May 2012 at USD 38 per share. It took the stock more than a year to surpass that price as the company worked to prove that it could grow mobile advertising revenue at a time when an increasing number of its users were accessing it on cell phones and tablet computers.