America
Facebook doubles earnings in 2014 through mobile devices
Los Angeles, Jan 29
Facebook has exceeded
analysts' predictions with annual results of double the net profit
posted by the company a year earlier -- thanks to good business growth
through mobile devices in 2014.
The company earned in 2014 a net
profit of $2.9 billion, nearly double the figure of 2013, while
Facebook's income last year amounted to $12.4 billion, representing an
increase of 58.4 percent compared to the previous year.
The
results presented Wednesday showed that the business branch of Facebook
grew more last year and confirmed the success of the company to make the
network more mobile-based.
In December 2014, the number of
Facebook subscribers reached 890 million which meant a growth of 18
percent compared to a year earlier.
Of the total number of active
daily users, 745 million (84 percent) logged in to the network through
mobile devices, which accounted for a 34 percent increase compared to
the previous year.
In addition, revenues derived from advertising
on mobile phones during the last quarter of 2014 accounted for 69
percent of total revenue, 16 percentage points more than in the same
period in 2013.
To take full advantage of this trend, Mark
Zuckerberg's company presented Facebook Audience Network last year, a
network that puts in contact exhibition platforms -- mostly mobile
applications -- with advertisers.
Facebook Mobile aims to
penetrate emerging markets such as Latin America and Southeast Asia
where not everyone has access to computers but where the use of
smartphones is significantly increasing.
During the three months
of October, November and December, Facebook shareholders earned profits
of $0.25 per share, compared to the $0.20 in the same period the
previous year, while the company had a turnover of $3.8 billion, marking
an increase of 48.6 percent, with $2.58 billion for the last quarter of
2013.
Facebook's results, however, did not meet investor
expectations and the share price slipped by 1.81 percent to $74.87 per
share in electronic trading after the close of the markets in New York.