Facebook Earnings Beat Street, Shares Up 7%

(RTTNews) - Facebook Inc. (FB), Wednesday reported a 61 percent surge in profit for the fourth quarter, driven largely by growth in ad revenues, as active users continue to rise. Both earnings and revenues for the quarter trumped Wall Street's estimates, sending its shares up 7 percent in extended trading session.

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook's fourth-quarter profit rose to $6.88 billion or $2.38 per share from $4.27 billion or $1.44 per share last year. On average, 42 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $2.19 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter surged 30 percent to $16.91 billion from $12.97 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $16.40 billion for the quarter.

Daily active users rose 9 percent to 1.52 billion on average for December 2018, while monthly active users also increased 9 percent to 2.32 billion.

Mobile advertising revenues continue to be dominant contributor to ad revenues as it represented 93 percent of advertising revenue for the quarter, up from 89 percent last year. Total advertising revenues surged 30 percent to $16.64 billion.

Revenues of Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site, continues to rise every quarter as companies and other firms continue to spend heavily to advertise on the social network.

"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."

Total costs and expenses jumped 62 percent to $9.09 billion, as Facebook continues to spend heavily on research and development as well as on marketing.

FB closed Wednesday's trading at $150.42, up $6.23 or 4.32%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $11.97 or 7.96% in the after-hours trading.