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Facebook Shares Shoot Up After Strong Q4 Earnings Despite Scandals (techcrunch.com)
Despite Facebook's recent scandals, such as the site's biggest data breach, the social media company managed to beat Wall Street's estimates in its Q4 earnings. "Facebook hit 2.32 billion monthly users, up 2.2 percent from 2.27 billion last quarter, speeding up its growth rate," reports TechCrunch. "Facebook climbed to 1.52 billion daily active users from 1.49 billion last quarter for a 2 percent growth rate that dwarfed last quarter's 1.36 percent." From the report: Facebook earned $16.91 billion off all those users with a $2.38 GAAP earnings per share. Those numbers handily beat Wall Street's expectations of $16.39 billion in revenue and $2.18 GAAP earnings per share, plus 2.32 billion monthly and 1.51 billion daily active users. Facebook's daily to monthly user ratio, or stickiness, held firm at 66 percent where it's stayed for years, showing those still on Facebook aren't using it much less. Facebook shares had closed today at $150.42 but shot up over 9 percent following the record revenue and profit announcements to hover around $162. A big 30 percent year-over-year boost in average revenue per user in North America fueled those gains. Yet that's still way down from $186 where it was a year ago and a peak of $217 in July.
Facebook's monthly active user plateaued in North America but roared up in Europe. That was shored up by a reversal of last quarter's decline in Rest Of World average revenue per user, which fell 4.7% in Q3 but bounced back with 16.5 percent growth in Q4. Facebook raked in $6.8 billion in profit this quarter as it slowed down hiring and only grew headcount 5 percent from 33,606 to 35,587. It seems Facebook has gotten to a comfortable place with its security staff-up in the wake of election interference, fake news, and content moderation troubles. Its revenue is up 30 percent year-over-year while profits grew 61 percent, which is pretty remarkable for a 15-year old technology company.
Facebook's monthly active user plateaued in North America but roared up in Europe. That was shored up by a reversal of last quarter's decline in Rest Of World average revenue per user, which fell 4.7% in Q3 but bounced back with 16.5 percent growth in Q4. Facebook raked in $6.8 billion in profit this quarter as it slowed down hiring and only grew headcount 5 percent from 33,606 to 35,587. It seems Facebook has gotten to a comfortable place with its security staff-up in the wake of election interference, fake news, and content moderation troubles. Its revenue is up 30 percent year-over-year while profits grew 61 percent, which is pretty remarkable for a 15-year old technology company.
Not a technology company. An advertising company.
If I can't go to the shops and buy a Facebook, they're not a technology company.
cue the basement dweller with the following -
1) fuck facebook
2) no one should use it
3) they should be accountable to what infomation ppl volunteer for free on a free service
oh wait - they don't mention point 3......
because - data leaks aside - users are volunteering their information for free on a free service...
plaster that shit on search engines.... thats not FB's fault ppl are idiots.
Am I the only one, only programmer, who thinks, jeez, just you know, "update hits set hits = hits * 1.0012;"?
How do we know those numbers are legit? Certainly, assessing facebook traffic numbers/members is as difficult to do as determining unemployment numbers. Is it so hard to believe that facebook would over-inflate it's numbers to compensate for the bad press and leaving members? As far as I know, there is no mechanism to verify the numbers they put out. And there seems to be a TON of money to be made based on these numbers.
Am I wrong?
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
BECAUSE of them.
And making it public knowledge that they have a load of private information and sell it is not scandals, at least not with those that matter, it's called "advertising to your actual customer".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Apple stock rose yesterday too. Also their earnings were less then what was expected, they were better then what the investor feared. So the stock went up.
Oddly enough this is how I am rating world affairs, things are worse today then I expected them to be years ago, however it is better then my worse fears on what could go wrong. But for some reason I am not happy about it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Facebook is an advertising company. There is a ton of add revenue for all the Facebook people to post that they are quitting Facebook.
I don't think a lot of people really knows what it means to boycott something.
Boycotting something actually puts you in a disadvantage to prove your point.
I have heard people say they are boycotting whatever, 80% are boycotting something they wouldn't get anyways. "I will boycott Roles Royce, because ummm they are the car of the wealthy who do not pay their taxes". then 10% will boycott something until they don't. "I boycott all internet ads, except for the ones selling products I want to buy". 5% say they are boycotting something just because they don't want the product. "I am boycotting all Apple Products.... I am a Samsung fan, and I have never bought an Apple produce and never will"
Only leaving a small percentage of people boycotting something for a cause, and their boycott will actually harm the business because it was actually lost business.
Unless a Scandal has a long term effect on its customer base, its stock will be high, no matter how bad they are.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Mod parent up.
Facebook's product is the private data of anyone that uses Facebook. They just tricked a lot of folks into installing spyware in the form of a VPN app. So now they have even more data that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten from these users' regular use of Facebook.
So why would it be a surprise that their stock just went up?
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.