Facebook crushes Q4 expectations while growing to 1.59B users worldwide
Facebook published fourth quarter and year-end financial results after the bell on Wednesday, and the social media brand is off to a good start, to say the least.
For the holiday quarter, the tech giant reported a net income of $1.562 billion, or 54 cents per share (statement).
Non-GAAP earnings were 79 cents per share on a revenue of $5.84 billion.
Wall Street was looking for earnings of just 68 cents per share with $5.36 billion in revenue.
The world's largest social network now stands at more than 1.59 billion monthly active users worldwide, surpassing the estimated total of 1.58 billion.
Not surprisingly, mobile played a huge role once again in propelling Facebook to smashing results for another quarter in a row.
Mobile advertising revenue accounted for roughly 80 percent of total ad revenue in Q4, a sizable jump from 69 percent of the pie during the same quarter the previous year.
Monthly active users on mobile also grew to 1.44 billion as of December 31, 2015, up 21 percent year-over-year.
For the full year, Facebook posted $17.93 billion in revenue, up 44 percent annually, with $2.28 earnings per share.
Keeping things short and sweet while still looking at the bigger picture, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, described 2015 as "a great year for Facebook."
"Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving," Zuckerberg wrote. "We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world."
For the current quarter, Wall Street is looking for non-GAAP earnings of 58 cents per share with $4.98 billion in revenue.
Slides via Facebook Investor Relations