Facebook beats Q3 targets with $3.2B in revenue, 1.35B users

Facebook handed in its third quarter earnings report after the bell on Tuesday, and they were good enough to at least satisfy analyst expectations.

The social network reported a net income of $806 million, or 30 cents per share (statement).

Non-GAAP earnings were 43 cents per share on a revenue of $3.203 billion, up 59 percent from the same time frame last year.

Wall Street was expecting earnings of at least 40 cents per share with revenue of $3.12 billion.

Much as it is the case with Twitter, user growth figures are usually the most scrutinized for Facebook.

However, the world's largest social network bloomed even more and probably won't suffer the same amount of backlash as its micro-blogging competitor did on Monday.

Facebook counted roughly 1.35 billion monthly active users as of September 30, 2014, up 14 percent year-over-year.

Mobile monthly active users -- a base increasingly critical for the Menlo Park-based business -- totaled 1.12 billion by the end of Q3, up 29 percent year-over-year.

Proving mobile's worth even further, revenue from mobile advertising jumped by 49 percent, now accounting for 66 percent of all advertising revenue as of Q3.

Daily active users rang up to approximately 864 million during the quarter, an increase of 19 percent year-over-year.

Keeping observations to a minimum while dropping a nod to the Internet.org project, CEO Mark Zuckerberg remarked in the report, "We continue to focus on serving our community well and continue to invest in connecting the world over the next decade."

For the current quarter, Wall Street expects earnings of 47 cents per share and revenue of $3.74 billion.

UPDATED: Facebook normally doesn't share specifics in regards to guidance, but CFO Dave Wehner said the social network was making an exception this quarter -- one that should not be expected to reoccur regularly.

That said, Facebook projected Q4 revenue to grow between 40 to 47 percent from Q4 2013.