The third quarter profits for Facebook have seen a jump that is mainly due to increased advertising sales.
The social media giant announced a net income figure of $891m (£579m) between July and September, which is up 11 per cent on last year’s figure of $806m. Increasing user growth in developing markets also helped towards the new high.
Innovating and investing
With Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg commenting that his company was “focused on innovating and investing for the long term,” advertising revenues from Instagram and WhatsApp are expected to continue the trend for the world’s largest social media site’s emphasis on generating ad income.
With a global user number of 1.55 billion, many advertisers now see Facebook as an important part of their overall marketing strategy.
One in five
According to the company’s own data, Facebook and subsidiary Instagram between them account for one in every five minutes that Americans spend online.
New features and innovations, such as 360-degree video and the recently introduced slideshow feature, allow advertisers to produce lower-cost videos for their products, and are part of a wider attempt to coax more small businesses to advertise with them.
With mobile devices becoming the de facto method of accessing the internet in developing countries, Facebook’s new data also revealed strong growth in its mobile user customer base, with the number of mobile daily users up 27 per cent in September alone, to hit a figure of 894 million people.
Outside social networking
As the lines between operational areas of the tech giants continue to blur, Facebook is looking to grow in other fields, and that means moving beyond a basic social media networking role.
In the same way that Google and Microsoft continue to explore activities and revenue streams beyond their core businesses, Facebook has already made strong statements such as buying leading virtual reality company Oculus Rift in 2014 for $2bn.
Although media analysts look towards how their headset products could change the gaming industry, increased use of 3D virtual reality applications could also revolutionise how we communicate online.
