Despite yet another terrible headline on privacy, Facebook soared over 4% into the close (highest since Nov 7th) ahead of earnings thanks to Jay Powell’s capitulation, and accelerated higher after hours following better than expected earnings, revenues, and daily active users.
“Our community and business continue to grow,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.
“We’ve fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on the biggest social issues, and we’re investing more to build new and inspiring ways for people to connect.”
Revenues and earnings beat solidly:
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*FACEBOOK 4Q REV. $16.91B, EST. $16.39B
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*FACEBOOK 4Q EPS $2.38, EST. $2.18
And the stock is up 7% after-hours…
And other highlights include:
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Daily active users (DAUs) better than 1.51 billion expected – DAUs were 1.52 billion on average for December 2018, an increase of 9% year-over-year.
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Monthly active users (MAUs) as expected – MAUs were 2.32 billion as of December 31, 2018, an increase of 9% year-over-year.
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Mobile advertising revenue – Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 93% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, up from approximately 89% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017.
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Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures were $4.37 billion and $13.92 billion for the fourth quarter and full year 2018, respectively.
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Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $41.11 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2018.
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Headcount – Headcount was 35,587 as of December 31, 2018, an increase of 42% year-over-year.
As Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier notes, Facebook results show how little the business is affected by the many scandals the company has caused around it. The company has been able to increase prices of its ads and move advertisers to new formats like “stories” — the user posts that disappear after 24 hours — to grow beyond the news feed.
We’re still waiting for more granular data on user growth, whether people in the top markets of the U.S. And Europe are still cooling on Facebook’s main app. That was a big warning sign for investors when it happened last year…
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2G9bVbo Tyler Durden