Facebook announced its Q4 2014 earnings today, and its mobile assault continues. The company posted EPS of $0.54 on revenue of $3.85 billion USD, the vast majority of which was earned by advertising revenue in then US & Canada. Though North American growth has slowed in recent quarters (it grew by only 2 million users between Q3 and Q4), Facebook has managed to increase ARPU (average revenue per user) to $9, compared to $7.39 last quarter. By comparison, European ARPU was $3.45 and worldwide was $2.81.
Mobile revenue fuelled Facebook’s growth, with 69% of overall advertising converted from smartphones and tablets. Mobile user growth continued to climb faster than the company’s overall ascent, boasting 1.19 billion monthly users (of 1.39 billion total). Mobile daily active users amounted to 745 million, a 34% year-over-year growth, compared to an 18% growth in overall DAUs.
Incredibly, 526 million users accessed Facebook only on a mobile device this past quarter, up 15% over the previous one.
While Facebook’s business is largely advertising-focused, its other revenue base, Payments and Other Fees, grew 7% year-over-year to $257 million. While not a quickly-growing segment, the unit will probably have increased importance in the coming years as the company gets into the mobile payment business.
But advertising is the company’s bread and butter, and the company made efforts to improve the quality of those ads in Q4, launching a native video platform for businesses. While auto-play videos may seem disruptive, brands are finding new ways to blend them into regular content, and users are adapting to their ubiquity. Such products will become cornerstones of advertising growth for networks like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and others, as more users go mobile, which is less accommodating of static banner ads.
[source]Facebook[/source]
