Commentary

Mobile Takes Over Facebook Revenue Growth

Watching Facebook grow is a little like the 1950s pulp horror movie “The Blob": It slowly absorbs everything in sight, and there’s not much anyone can do to stop it.

The social giant owns monster apps like WhatsApp and Instagram, is branching its services into publishing and retail with instant articles and carousel ads, experimenting with artificial intelligence to make its Messenger app better, and even preparing to launch a satellite to provide Internet access (and probably to enlighten the ignorant masses with Facebook from on-high).

Just for some perspective, Facebook has acquired more than 50 companies since its founding, about a fifth of which are directly related to mobile devices and technology.

The newest Q3 earnings report from Facebook shows that all those acquisitions are paying for themselves.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 78% of all ad revenue for the third quarter of 2015, up from 66% in the third quarter of 2014. In Q2 mobile ad revenue for the social giant was 76%, showing that at least for Facebook, 2015 has definitely been the year of mobile.

Mobile daily active users (DAUs) were 894 million on average for September 2015, an increase of 27% year-over-year. That many daily users meant that monthly active users (MAUs) also increased, reaching 1.39 billion as of September 30, which is an increase of 23% year-over-year.

Facebook is a notoriously sticky destination for users on all devices, with a 65.1% of MAUs visiting daily. It even added 4 million users from the U.S. and Canada, which is the geographical core of its business.

In short, profits and revenues are up, everyone and their mother uses Facebook, and mobile usage remains at the core. I for one welcome our new social media overlords.

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