Facebook tops analyst revenue targets as mobile ads surge

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc posted strong growth in its mobile advertising business, driving a 60 percent increase in revenue that beat Wall Street's targets.

Shares of the world's No. 1 online social network rose 9.4 percent to $53.60 in after-hours trading.

Revenue from mobile ads, which appear on smartphones, represented 49 percent of Facebook's total advertising revenue in the third quarter, or roughly $880 million. Mobile ads generated roughly $150 million in the year-ago period, when Facebook was just beginning to develop its mobile ad business.

"It looks like they're firing on all cylinders," said JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey.

He said that Facebook's strong mobile advertising revenue in particular has put to rest the worries that many investors had at the time of the company's 2012 IPO.

"They clearly have the product, they have the traffic and now they have the advertising solution," said Josey.

Facebook said the number of its monthly active users increased to 1.19 billion as of the end of September, up from 1.15 billion at the end of June. Facebook said it counts roughly 507 million daily active mobile users.

Shares of Facebook has doubled in the past three months, as Wall Street has warmed to the Internet company's ability to thrive as consumers increasingly access the Web on smartphones and other mobile devices.

Facebook's total revenue in the third quarter was $2.016 billion, ahead of the average analyst expectation of $1.911 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Facebook said it earned net income of $425 million, or 17 cents a share, in the three months ended September 30, compared with a net loss of $59 million, or 2 cents a share in the year-ago period. (http://link.reuters.com/xas34v)

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Bernard Orr)