Posts tagged earnings
Facebook Earnings Results Show Progress On Mobile
May 1st
Mark Zuckerberg likes to say that Facebook is now a “mobile first, mobile best” company – and the company’s earnings report for the quarter ended March 31, 2013 actually backs him up, in both usage rates and revenue:
Mobile ad revenue for the quarter ending March 31, 2013 was $375 million, accounted for 30% of the company’s total ad revenues. That is up from 23% in the last quarter of 2012.
COO Sheryl Sandberg claimed that Facebook ads helped drive “25 million” app downloads. (Essentially, developers pay to promote their app inside a user’s Newsfeed. Click on the ad and go straight to Google Play or Apple’s App Store.) Zuckerberg added that, ”I think it’s clear now that we can create a lot of value for [developers] by providing identity. We’re starting to see real revenue from mobile app installs.” The company said 40% of top-grossing iOS and Android apps were promoted on Facebook.
Facebook boasted 751 million mobile “monthly active users” – a 54% increase over the same quarter last year and 71 million more than it registered in the fourth quarter of 2012.
In fact, the now company claims 189 million mobile-only monthly active users, up from just 83 million a year ago and 157 million in the last quarter of 2012
The first quarter also saw the debut of the Facebook Home launcher. So far, though, Facebook Home has fewer than a million downloads and only a 2 (out of 5) rating. Sales of the HTC First smartphone, which has Home embedded, have been rumored to be minimal. On the earnings call, Zuckerberg described both Home and the company’s new Graph Search as “long-term investments.”
Facebook did not break out mobile usage by geography or platform (e.g. iPhone vs. Android), nor did it separate user data by age or other demographics. Sanderberg, however, did say that the company’s mobile ad business was doing particularly well in Asia.
Do Kids Still Like Facebook?
Overall, Facebook brought in $1.46 billion for the quarter, generally in line with Wall Street expectations – and a 38% increase year-over-year. Revenue from advertising hit $1.25 billion, a 43% increase year-over-year. Advertising accounted for 85% of Facebook’s total quarterly revenues, with payments and fees delivering the remainder.
Revenue aside, many of the rumors circulating around Facebook concerned worries that the world’s largest social network was beginning to lose members, particularly young users in the U.S. and other developed countries, and that existing users were becoming less engaged. On the conference call, CFO David Ebersman was asked if “kids still like Facebook.” He responded by stating that “Facebook is awesome for everyone, regardless of age. And, yes, kids still like Facebook.” Ebersman also claimed that, “Younger users are more active and engaged than other users… as for competitors, this is not a zero sum game.”
While Facebook did not fully address these questions, overall the Facebook user numbers looked relatively healthy:
- 665 million “daily active users” on average for March 2013 – a slight increase over Q4 2012′s 618 million, and a 26% increase year-over-year
- Monthly active users were 1.11 billion as of March 31, 2013 – a 23% increase year-over-year and up slightly from 1.056 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012.
- Instagram had 100 million monthly active users during the quarter
See also Facebook earnings summary and earnings slides (pdf).
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Google Earnings: Q1 Revenue Rises And Paid Clicks Up 20% Though CPC Slips 4% YoY
Apr 18th
Google announced their Q1 2013 earnings today, and as many analysts expected, the company posted revenue gains over the previous year. Revenue rose 31% year-over-year to $13.97 billion for the quarter, beating expectations. Here are the highlights: Paid Clicks — Aggregate paid clicks,…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Oracle Flim-Flam Alakazams Missed 3Q Earnings
Mar 29th
Magicians work their performances with a combination of talent, slight-of-hand and a lot of misdirection. On stage, a well-orchestrated misdirect is enough to pull off the best illusions. In the corporate world, it can sometimes work well, too, as Oracle seems to have discovered with their school-yard baiting of IBM – a move that is distracting some away from Oracle’s missed third-quarter earnings.
To see the misdirect in action, let’s briefly look at the timeline of events:
- Mar. 20: On Oracle’s third-quarter call, the company reports a significant earnings miss, which initially drove the company’s stock down 8% in trading. Executives on the call noted a 2% drop in new software sales and Internet-based software subscriptions in the quarter, a problem they attributed to a rapidly expanding salesforce (i.e., blame it on the new sales folk).
(See also Oracle’s Big Miss: The End Of An Enterprise Era?)
- Mar. 26: Oracle announces a new SPARC T5 line of mid-range servers (along with some mainframe M5 boxes), which starts yet-another line of questioning about the viability of using expensive multi-threaded servers in an age where Intel dominates single-threaded commodity servers and ARM-based servers are on the horizon. It’s a familiar question, since some were asking it when Oracle pushed out its T4 line in 2011. But such questions are soon forgotten, because…
- Still Mar. 26: During the SPARC announcement, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, well known for his genteel manners and discretion, throws down some smack talk on IBM’s more expensive server line, with the stats to back up their claims, claims such as “[t]he SPARC T5-8 server delivers 1.4 times better performance than the next best single system result, the 32-processor IBM Power 595, at one-fifth the price/performance.” Wait for it… wait…
- Mar. 27: IBM Marketing Manager Steve Sibley chomps at the bait, firing off a response to Business Insider that Oracle’s comparisons are wildly off the mark, since they are comparing brand-new Oracle boxes to IBM setups that are completely different configurations and also three to five years old. Sibley also reminded BI that this isn’t the first time IBM’s had Oracle pull down wild claims in advertising and public statements about the performance of its servers.
(Check out Oracle Has Problems Telling The Truth In Its Advertising)
- Mar. 28: Oracle doesn’t back down, as John Fowler, Oracle’s executive vice president of systems, emails Business Insider: “IBM customers are being wildly over-charged for the performance they’re getting.”
Note, please, that in all of this hullaballoo, no one is talking much about Oracle’s missed earnings, and any conversations about Oracle’s hardware are in the context of comparing them to IBM’s older hardware products – right where Oracle wants those conversations to be.
“A la peanut butter sandwiches!”, as The Amazing Mumford would say.
If this were a one-time thing, it would be merely something of note. But a pattern seems to be forming with Oracle and their product announcements: it’s not enough to just hold up their own hardware and software features, but they habitually have to take pot-shots at anyone else in the space as well. That’s all part of doing business, of course, but Oracle appears to just make things up or cherry pick data to create a scenario that makes them look the best.
Sooner or later, though, such tactics may wear thin on potential customers and even existing customers. If you treat marketing as one big magic trick, how long before people start to wonder if what you have to offer is real, or an illusion?
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BlackBerry Steadies Its Boat In Latest Quarterly Earnings
Mar 28th
As BlackBerry steers its ship to hopefully happier seas, the smartphone maker is struggling to gain momentum. In its first quarterly earnings report since changing its name from Research In Motion to BlackBerry, the Canadian company announced stagnant earnings on the strength of six million smartphones shipped and 370,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Total revenue was $2.7 billion, down about 2% from the previous quarter and 46% (from $4.2 billion) from the same quarter a year ago.
BlackBerry said it shipped one million BlackBerry 10 devices in the quarter. All things considered, that is not bad. The Canadian fiscal quarter ended March 2. The BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 (which is not yet available) were announced on January 30 and did not shipping to its first round of countries (Canada, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates) for more than a week afterwards. BlackBerry has been expanding its roster of countries where the BlackBerry is shipping through the end of February and into March. The United States has finally seeing the touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 to major carriers within the past week.
BlackBerry’s revenue was generated 61% from hardware, 36% for services and 3% for software and other revenue. Services for BlackBerry include many of its enterprise and government services, such as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
“We have implemented numerous changes at BlackBerry over the past year and those changes have resulted in the Company returning to profitability in the fourth quarter,” said Thorsten Heins, President and CEO. “With the launch of BlackBerry 10, we have introduced the newest and what we believe to be the most innovative mobile computing platform in the market today. Customers love the device and the user experience, and our teams and partners are now focused on getting those devices into the hands of BlackBerry consumer and enterprise customers.”
While the quarterly earnings from BlackBerry are not outstanding, it should be noted that the company does not appear to be hemorrhaging money any longer. BlackBerry actually made $94 million in profit this quarter. That can be a little deceptive as BlackBerry has gone through massive layoffs and reorganization, but it seems that CEO Thorsten Heins has the company running lean and, for the first time in a long time, shipping actual products and generating buzz.
BlackBerry also announced that its co-founder Mike Lazaridis is leaving the company and will retire May 1, 2013. Lazaridis leaves less than a month after his co-founder Jim Balsillie sold all of his stock and left the company.
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HTC Earnings Reveal New Foray Into Emerging Markets
Feb 4th
HTC has been a brand known for trying to hit the top of the market. Its recent smartphone builds have had slicks designs, top specs and high price tags. The company has focused on consumers with above average incomes in developed markets like the United States and Western Europe.
And has fallen flat.
Lukewarm Earnings
HTC knows it is in trouble. Its sales are stale and are expected to stay that way, if not worsen. It is facing stiff competition in the middle of the smartphone market from the likes of Nokia and BlackBerry along with a plethora of Asian manufacturers such as LG, Huawei and ZTE. Something needs to give. As such, HTC said today that it would begin producing lower-end smartphones and focus on emerging markets, especially China, according to Reuters.
HTC announced today that its revenue from Q4 2012 was $2.03 billion ($60 billion New Taiwan dollars). That is down from $2.37 billion (NT$70.2 billion) in Q3 2012. HTC CEO Peter Chou said he expects the results from the first quarter of 2013 to be even worse. Hence, the need to expand its product to different price structures targeted at a different market.
Having Trouble Competing? Find A New Market
It is not a surprising development. If a company runs out of room to grow in one market, the best thing to do is find another where it can. The U.S has proven itself to be Apple/Samsung centric, a reality that has hit the rest of the smartphone manufacturer industry hard (see the U.S. struggles of Nokia, Motorola, LG and BlackBerry). HTC has a variety of quality devices available in the U.S., including the One X+, Droid DNA for Android and 8X Windows Phone. Anybody looking for quality smartphones could do a lot worse than acquiring an HTC device.
You can peel away HTC’s problems like so many layers of an onion. Foremost, its brand strength lags behind that of Apple and Samsung. That means that even when HTC comes out with a top quality device, it lacks the excitement and anticipation reserved for new iPhones or Samsung Galaxies. As we have seen with the iPhone, that type of hype and consumer anticipation is very important to a smartphone maker’s bottom line.
HTC also has a logistical distribution problem, especially in the U.S., where its top devices are tied into exclusivity agreements with carriers like Sprint (Evo 4G LTE), One X+ (AT&T) and Verizon (Droid DNA). As we have seen, exclusivity agreements tend to be poor bets for manufacturers looking to make dents in the market. HTC’s declining revenues make it difficult to remedy either of those situations.
HTC’s declining revenue then makes its decision to focus on emerging markets easy to understand. If it cannot keep up with the big boys in the big market, try to make a dent with limited resources in nascent markets. It will still face stiff competition in the likes of China and India, but at least in those regions it can stretch its dollars further than it could in the U.S.
HTC’s new direction does not necessarily mean it will skip the top smartphone markets. The manufacturer is expected to announce its new “M7″ Android smartphone at launch events in New York and London later this month.
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What To Expect From Facebook’s Q4 Earnings Report
Jan 30th
Analysts, investors and naysayers alike are waiting with bated breath today in anticipation of Facebook’s fourth quarter earnings report. The company is expected to report $1.53 billion in revenue from the final quarter in 2012, up from $1.26 billion in the third quarter. After hitting record lows around $17 per share last September, Facebook has been climbing back up to its lofty IPO price of $38 per share as it promises to figure out a mobile revenue model.
According to Spruce Media, a social marketing platform that handles $150 million a year in Facebook ads, “Ending 2012 and going into 2013, we see Brands continuing their Facebook investment from being a “let’s try this out” to a “must-buy”… Facebook had an extremely productive 2012 and has shown the market that they have a commitment to developing innovative advertising products that provide a better user experience.”
In the fourth quarter, Facebook aggressively rolled out mobile product updates, flexing its muscle in an area that the social company has historically been slow to expand into. At the time of writing, Facebook is trading at $31.20 a share – a far cry from its mid-2012 lows.
Read on to see quotes of what observers expect from Facebook’s fourth quarter:
(See also: How Facebook Got Busy During Its Third Quarter)
“Whether it’s Snapchat or Twitter… consumers can be finicky,” said Aaron Kessler, an analyst with Raymond James Associates Inc. “That’s the real question: Does Facebook have staying power on mobile?”
“I expect a big number,” says Eric Jackson, shareholder and founder of Ironfire Capital… “I think Facebook probably had a great fourth quarter, it’s their biggest quarter of the year.”
While Facebook’s recently announced graph search is still in its infancy, Jackson says the company is throwing so many things at the wall right now that at least a few of them are bound to stick and make money, and more importantly, ”grow into its valuations.”
“…analysts at Sterne Agee reiterated their “Buy” rating on Facebook in anticipation of strong Q4 results. The firm predicts a 75% increase in sequential mobile revenue growth, an area key to Facebook’s financial success.
The fresh nod of confidence from Sterne Agee comes on the heels of a handful of recent upgrades. Raymond James (NYSE: RJF) analysts just boosted their rating on Facebook to an “Outperform” from a “Market Perform” and set a price target of $38.
“We continue to like Facebook shares and view the company as arguably the most under-levered name in the Internet sector,” RBC wrote in a research note.
Analyst consensus puts Facebook’s revenue at $1.5 billion for the quarter. On Wednesday, Facebook was trading over $31 per share shortly after the market’s open, up around 2 percent from the previous day’s close.
Shares of Facebook, scheduled to report fourth-quarter financial results after the closing bell on Wednesday, traded up 3% to $32.47, after Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia reaffirmed a buy rating.
Both analysts cited Facebook’s mobile momentum — once referred to as “mobile mojo” by another analyst, after the company reported that 14% of its total ad revenues were now derived from its mobile business.
Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray tech analyst with ratings of “overweight” – the equivalent of “buy” – on both stocks, says the shift is because Apple’s growth looks like it is slowing, while Facebook’s growth seems to be picking up.
“Facebook is continuing to push for aggressive growth,” he said. “Aggressive-growth investors really tend not to care what they pay for a stock, as long as the growth is very rapid.”
Still, as its post-IPO nosedive suggests, Facebook isn’t immune to volatility and remains something of a wild card as investors and analysts try to make sense of how the social network fits into the market – and just how much money Facebook can wring out of its developing mobile business model.
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Why Microsoft’s Earnings Report Doesn’t Reveal How Windows 8 Is Doing
Jan 25th
Microsoft reported an unexpected boost in both profits and revenue within its Windows division for the fourth quarter, and yet little of that had to do with real demand for Windows 8.
Well, possibly. Or maybe not. Or perhaps we’re completely wrong.
(See Microsoft Earnings Surprise: Windows Soars, While Office Stuggles.)
That’s because Microsoft revealed very few details about the success or failure of Windows 8 in its quarterly earnings call on Thursday afternoon, and what little company executives divulged had already been disclosed. Yes, we know that Microsoft has sold more than 60 million Windows 8 licenses to date. Big deal. Windows marketing chief Tami Reller said as much earlier this month.
The big statement from Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, on Windows 8 simply reiterated what most Microsoft followers already knew:
“With the launch in October, we collectively took the first of many steps in changing the way people use technology at work and at play,” Klein said. “Since then, the number of Windows 8 certified systems has nearly doubled, the number of apps in the Windows store has quadrupled, and Windows users have downloaded over 100 million apps. To date, we have sold over 60 million licenses of Windows 8. Our partners, including OEM hardware manufacturers, app developers, and retailers, have worked hard to get us to where we are today. It’s early days and an ambitious endeavor like this takes time. Together with our partners, we remain focused on fully delivering the promise of Windows 8.”
Why Windows Won
Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live revenue grew 24% to $5.88 billion, while the division’s profits grew 14% to $3.3 billion. Why? Three reasons, according to Klein, were responsible for the bulk of the revenue increase:
- Retail upgrades.
- Surface sales.
- Multi-year license agreements struck with enterprises.
Some, like ex-Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff, suspected that the bulk of the Windows division’s sudden boost in revenues was money that had been deferred from pre-sales of Windows 8 before the launch. Subtract that, and the 24% increase drops to 11%. According to Microsoft, sales to equipment makers outpaced the x86 PC market – no surprise there, given that the third-quarter PC market dropped.
Probably the most important news is that enterprise volume license sales - multi-year license deals that are typically signed for three years - were up “double digits” Klein said. (We don’t know, however, if they were for Windows 7 or Windows 8.) More than 60% of all corporate PCs currently run Windows 7, which is an indication of strong enterprise support.
Unfortunately, Microsoft said virtually nothing about its Surface tablet, including sales figures. And how many consumers took advantage of the cheap $39.99 Windows 7-to-8 upgrade, or the $19.99 upgrade for those who bought a new PC before Windows 8 was released? We may never know.
“The Microsoft financials show that they did indeed profit well from the work they did on Windows 8,” Patrick Moorhead, principal with Moor Insights, said in an email. “Unfortunately their [manufacturing partners] can’t say the same. The fact is, the jury is still out on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft has a long way to go to show that both operating systems are strategically a success.”
We Know Nothink
What else did we learn that we already knew? For one thing, we know that Klein is a master at dodging questions. Give credit to Walter Pritchard of Citigroup, who asked one of the more adroit questions: In the months following the Windows 8 launch, what has Microsoft learned about the importance of price (in terms of the Surface tablet, we presume) in terms of driving sales, and will Microsoft eventually lower prices?
Mr. Klein?
“We learned a lot… about the price points customers are looking for from their devices,” Klein returned. “We saw some really great demand for touch devices for the market. In some cases we didn’t have the supply we needed to satisfy that demand. I think from a price point we learned what we always suspected: there’s segmentation and differentiation. One of the powers of the Windows ecosystem is obviously, a variety of devices and form factors and experiences at a variety of price points. And I think we learned from experience that that continues to be important, and as I said we continue to work closely with our chip partners as well as OEMs to bring the right mix of devices, which to your point, mean the right set of touch devices at the right price point of the unique needs of the individual. I think we learned a lot about that and one of the things you’ll see is a greater variety of devices at a bigger variety of price points to meet the different needs of consumers.”
Stop. The. Presses.
Unfortunately, the only Microsoft exec that can actually be goaded into something resembling an answer wasn’t on the call. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer was absent (“he pulled a Sinofsky!” one friend quipped) but made an appearance via press release:
“Our big, bold ambition to reimagine Windows as well as launch Surface and Windows Phone 8 has sparked growing enthusiasm with our customers and unprecedented opportunity and creativity with our partners and developers. With new Windows devices, including Surface Pro, and the new Office on the horizon, we’ll continue to drive excitement for the Windows ecosystem…”
What We Do Know
Microsoft did provide some additional… well, they weren’t “facts,” exactly.
- Sales of Windows Phones are up four times compared to last year, whatever that figure was.
- Online ad revenue grew 15% (although the Online Division lost money, again: $283 million)
- If one factored out $788 million of deferred Office upgrade revenue, Microsoft’s Business Division grew revenues by 3%.
- Deferring $380 million in video game revenue (for add-on packs and the like) meant that Entertainment revenue was down only 2%, not 11%.
- The Windows upgrade offer expires at the end of February, when Microsoft will recongnize $1.1 billion in revenue – giving a nice little boost to Microsoft’s third fiscal quarter Windows revenues, too.
According to Klein, Microsoft is positioned for growth across a “massive” market, from tablets to laptops, to ultrabooks and all-in-ones.
OK, we know the potential is there. Microsoft has been saying that for months. So what’s going on now?
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Microsoft Earnings Surprise: Windows Soars, While Office Struggles
Jan 24th
Maybe Windows 8 isn’t doing so badly after all.
Overall, Microsoft profits fell 4% during the fourth calendar quarter, although revenue climbed. Revenue and profits within Microsoft’s Windows division jumped dramatically compared to a year ago, however.
In total, Microsoft reported $6.4 billion in net income, in line with what analysts expected. Revenue increased 2.73% to $21.5 billion.
Microsoft Beats Wall St. Estimates
Analysts had expected the firm’s revenue to grow about 3% from the $20.9 billion the company posted in the same period last year to around $21.5 billion, according to analysts polled by Yahoo Finance. They also anticipated a 4% drop in profits, from 78 cents per share to 75 cents per share.
“Our big, bold ambition to reimagine Windows as well as launch Surface and Windows Phone 8 has sparked growing enthusiasm with our customers and unprecedented opportunity and creativity with our partners and developers,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft, in a statement. “With new Windows devices, including Surface Pro, and the new Office on the horizon, we’ll continue to drive excitement for the Windows ecosystem and deliver our software through devices and services people love and businesses need.”
Microsoft’s Windows division recorded the highest revenue of all of Microsoft’s business units, and nearly the highest profits as well.
Microsoft said that in total, more than 60 million Windows 8 licenses had been sold, in keeping with what Tami Reller, Microsoft’s Windows marketing chief, had said earlier this month. Revenue from the Windows and Windows Live Division jumped by 24% versus a year ago, and profits climbed 14%. For the September quarter, the Windows and Windows Live Division produced $1.64 billion in profits on $3.2 billion in revenue.
At launch, Microsoft claimed that 16 million Windows 8 pre-release licenses had been installed; by the end of November, 40 million Windows 8 licenses had been installed. In January, Windows marketing chief Tami Reller said 60 million Windows 8 licenses had been installed.
Office 365 Subscriptions Didn’t Pay Off
Microsoft made a bit bet on its Office 365 suite, pricing Office 365 at less than the standalone Office package and tempting its customers to switch to the subscription model. Surprisingly, that didn’t pay off. Revenue fell 10% to $5.7 billion, while profits fell 15%. Traditionally, Microsoft’s Business Division yields the most revenue among Microsoft’s business unit; for the September quarter, the unit reported $3.6 billion in profits on top of $5.5 billion in revenue.
Microsoft’s Server & Tools business reported $2.1 billion in profits on top of $5.19 billion in revenue. For the September quarter, Server & Tools produced $1.7 billion in profits on $4.5 billion in revenue. Microsoft’s Online division lost less money than a year ago – $283 million, on higher revenue of $869 million. And Microsoft’s Entertainment Division, which houses the Xbox, recorded a larger $596 million profit on revenue of $3.7 billion.
Microsoft had predicted a strong start to Windows 8. In October, Keith Lorizio, vice president of U.S. sales and marketing for Microsoft, predicted that 400 million users would be using Windows 8 by July 2013.
Windows 8 Sales Could Quiet Critics
For months, there have been signs that Microsoft’s Windows 8 software didn’t take off as quickly as, say, an Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad – signs that Microsoft’s revenue figures seem to disprove. A top executive at Internet retailer NewEgg, for example, had characterized the Windows 8 launch as “slow going.” Merle McIntosh, the senior vice president of product management of Newegg North America, said in November that he expected sales of Windows 8 to begin taking off during the second quarter of 2013. Julie Larson-Green, the head of Windows development, talked about how it could take weeks to transition to Windows 8. And Tami Reller, in charge of marketing strategy for Windows 8, began managing expectations for Windows 8 weeks ago by spinning it as a product that would require multiple selling seasons to get up to speed.
Image source: Microsoft
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Google Earnings: 2012 Revenue of $50 Billion, Q4 Revenue of $14 Billion, CPCs Fall
Jan 24th
Online search giant Google exceeded forecasters’ expectations with reported revenues of $14.42 billion for the last quarter of 2012. This is an increase of 36 percent over the comparable quarter in 2011, and an 8 percent increase over the previous quarter
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Facebook Stock Hovers At $30 As Q4 Earnings Approach
Jan 23rd
A full week away from its first fiscal year earnings report as a public company- Facebook shares are holding fast around $30 a share. After the sky-high IPO and subsequent nosedive, Facebook has perked up over the course of January. And if you ask the CEO of Morgan Stanley - coincidentally the lead underwriter of Facebook IPO – its stock is “normalizing” at long last. The Q4 and fiscal year earnings will be reported on January 30 at 2 p.m. Pacific.
Facebook Recovers And Hovers
Facebook hit $30 a share on January 9, the day after the company sent out a press invitation to join Zuckerberg and company in Menlo Park. At the January 15 event, Facebook revealed Graph Search, the social network’s so-called third pillar, which joins the ranks of Timeline and News Feed.
Facebook hadn’t hit levels over $30 per share since last July. Last August, Facebook stock dove to roughly half of its IPO valuation of $38 a share. After weathering its big lockup expiration scare in November, it began a steady crawl back up through the end of 2012.
A Mobile Quarter
During its 2012 Q3 earnings call, Facebook declared that its strategy moving forward would be mobile, mobile, mobile. And true to its word, the company had a pretty busy mobile fourth quarter:
- Released a native Android app to join the new native iOS app (re-built away from HTML5)
- Launched Poke, a Snapchat-like disappearing-messaging app
- Announced Nearby, a reimagined local check-in and discovery tool
- Managed to put a tourniquet on the Great Instagram Almost-Exodus of 2012
- Added Photo Sync mobile photography feature
- Added free VoIP calling to the Messenger iOS app
In its Q3 earnings report, Facebook highlighted its intention to boost mobile engagement even further while zeroing in on monetizing its mobile product family (Facebook, Messenger, Camera, Poke, Instagram). On the call, Zuckerberg noted that 14% of reported ad revenue that quarter came from mobile, totaling some $150 million.
We look forward to hearing how the last quarter of 2012 shakes out during next week’s earnings call, which should also be chock full of juicy fiscal-year revenue details and (hopefully) some hard stats on its number of active users beyond the billion mark.
Still, the company’s stock remains down roughly 20% from its initial offering price. In a wild world in which the biggest social network ever created suffers the slings and unlikes of fickle investors, it’s impossible to say what’s just around the corner for the financial fate of Facebook.
Image by Taylor Hatmaker.
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