Record profits for Facebook which also invests heavily – Arcinfo

Facebook almost inevitably inspired to announce another success. The press release accompanying the publication of its results for the third quarter is introduced by a single sentence. “We had a good quarter and we worked” , simply explained Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the social network. “We focused on innovation and investment in the long term to help our community and connect the world.”

For the rest, he prefers to let the numbers speak . Facebook boasts 4.5 billion in sales between July and September, up 30% year on year. Profits, they have increased 11% to $ 896 million for the third quarter 2015.

In addition, the US social network exceeded the symbolic threshold of one billion active users, according to site attendance average in September.

Spending explode

Facebook has achieved these good results despite the explosion of its expenditure. For the third quarter 2015, they amounted to $ 3 billion, up 68% compared to the same period last year. Most of these investments are divided into three major areas: virtual reality, through the Oculus Rift headset, connectivity, thanks to Internet.org project, and artificial intelligence. Expensive but key projects for Facebook, which aims to connect the world beyond the social network as we know it today.

Redeem past mistakes

These expenses are also a way to redeem the mistakes of the past. Facebook has long been criticized for its lack of responsiveness to the mobile revolution. Since then, the social network has largely caught up. He bought several popular applications at great expense ($ 22 billion for WhatsApp and 747 million to Instagram) and launched its own mobile services (Messenger). The network now has over 894 million active users per day.

Facebook has also improved its advertising tools to better adapt to small screens. The issue was crucial: the vast majority of social network revenue comes from advertising. It represented more than 95% of its turnover in the third quarter 2015.

Facebook now has over 2.5 million customers that display advertisements on its pages. The social network attracts ads through its wide audience, both on computers and on smartphones and tablets. Mobile now represents over 78% of advertising revenue from Facebook. This portion was 66% in the third quarter of 2014.

The social network now occupies more than 18% of the mobile advertising market, behind Google (37% market share). This share could rise to 20% in 2017, according to the institute eMarketer study. The lesson is held: Facebook is not afraid to spend to ensure its future. Le Figaro