Facebook Results Top Estimates

(RTTNews) - Social networking giant Facebook, Inc. (FB) said Wednesday after the markets closed that its second quarter profit fell 9% from last year, as higher costs and expenses more than offset a 39% increase in revenue.

However, the company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, came in above analysts' expectations as did its quarterly revenue.

This marks the company's twelfth quarterly results since going public through a much hyped IPO in May 2012.

"This was another strong quarter for our community," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "Engagement across our family of apps keeps growing, and we remain focused on improving the quality of our services."

Facebook shares are currently losing 2.25% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $96.99, up $1.70 or 1.78%. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $70.32 to $99.24. Facebook joined the S&P 500 Index on December 20, 2013.

The company's advertising revenue for the second quarter surged 43% year-over-year to $3.83 billion and constituted nearly 95% of total revenue.

Facebook said in February that it had more than 2 million active advertisers. The company had revealed in July 2014 that it had 1.5 million active advertisers. The company had crossed the 1 million-advertiser mark in June 2013.

Facebook has now become a big hit with mobile phone users. Facebook's mobile ad revenue represented about 76% of advertising revenue for the second quarter, up from about 73% in the prior quarter and 62% in the prior year quarter.

The company ended the second quarter with 1.49 billion monthly active users, an increase of 13% from a year earlier. Daily active users were 968 million on average for June, up 17% from last year. Mobile monthly active users surged 23% to 1.31 billion at June 30.

For the second quarter ended June 30, 2015, the Menlo Park, California-based company reported net income of $719 million or $0.25 per share, compared to $791 million or $0.30 per share for the year-ago quarter.

Excluding items, adjusted net income for the second quarter was $1.44 billion or $0.50 per share, compared to $1.12 billion or $0.43 per share in the prior year quarter.

On average, 42 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.47 per share for the second quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenue for the second quarter rose 39% to $4.04 billion from $2.91 billion in the same quarter last year. Forty analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $3.99 billion for the second quarter.

Total costs and expenses for the quarter jumped 82% to $2.77 billion, with R&D expenses more than doubling from a year earlier.