Facebook Q2 Results Trounce Street View, But Shares Slip 3% As It Warns Of Slowing Growth

(RTTNews) - Facebook Inc. (FB) on Wednesday reported its second-quarter results, with both earnings and revenues trouncing Wall Street estimates, driven by strong ad revenue growth. However, the social networking giant's shares slipped over 3% in extended trading session after the company said it expects revenue growth to "decelerate significantly" going forward.

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook's second-quarter more than doubled to $10.39 billion or $3.61 per share from $5.18 billion or $1.80 per share last year. On average, 40 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $3.02 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter surged 56 percent to $29.08 billion from $18.69 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $27.82 billion for the quarter.

"We had a strong quarter as we continue to help businesses grow and people stay connected," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "I'm excited to see our major initiatives around creators and community, commerce, and building the next computing platform coming together to start to bring the vision of the metaverse to life."

Daily active users were up 7 percent to 1.91 billion on average for June, while monthly active users increased 7 percent to 2.90 billion.

Total advertising revenues rose 56 percent to $28.58 billion. The company said its revenue growth was driven by a 47% year-over-year increase in the average price per ad and a 6% increase in the number of ads delivered.

Moving ahead, Facebook said it expects advertising revenue growth to be driven primarily by year-over-year advertising price increases during the rest of 2021.

"In the third and fourth quarters of 2021, we expect year-over-year total revenue growth rates to decelerate significantly on a sequential basis as we lap periods of increasingly strong growth," the company said in a statement.

FB closed Wednesday's trading at $373.28, up $5.47 or 1.49%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, slipped $12.98 or 3.48%, in the after-hours trade.