Despite critics who say Facebook is nothing more than a hotbed of misinformation, data abuse and hate speech, the company finished the year strong, beating analysts' expectations in its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. The company posted revenue of $16.91 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, beating its previous record by more than $3 billion.
And while Facebook's user base is certainly not growing as quickly as it once did, there are no signs of a "mass exodus" that many experts had predicted following the Cambridge Analytica, Russian bot, etc. scandals last year. The world's largest social network now has 2.32 billion monthly active users, two-thirds of which, or 1.52 billion people, access the platform daily.
The recent jump in sales is primarily due to the company generating more and more revenue per user. Last quarter, global average revenue per user was $7.37, more than five times higher than the same period in 2011. However, there is a limit to how much money Facebook can squeeze out of its users, and during yesterday's earnings call, the company's CFO David Wehner warned that advertising revenue will likely grow more slowly over the course of 2019 because people's news feeds are already at their peak There are limits to advertising utilization and usage is shifting towards stories that are not yet monetized as effectively.
Defying all critics saying Facebook is nothing but a hotbed for misinformation, data abuse and hate speech, the company finished the year off strongly, beating analyst expectations across the board in its fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. The company netted $16.91 billion in revenue in the three months ending December 31, beating its previous record by more than $3 billion.
And while Facebook's user base certainly isn't growing as quickly as it used to, there are no signs of a “mass exodus” that many experts had predicted after last year's scandals surrounding Cambridge Analytica, Russian bots etc. The world's largest social network now has 2.32 billion monthly active users, of which a stable two thirds, or 1.52 billion people, access the platform every day.
The latest jump in revenue can mainly be attributed to the fact that the company generates more and more revenue per user. In the past quarter, global average revenue per user amounted to $7.37, which is more than five times the per-user haul of the same period in 2011. There is a limit to how much money Facebook can squeeze out of its users however and during yesterday's earnings call, the company's CFO David Wehner warned that ad revenue will probably grow slower throughout 2019 as people's news feeds are already at their limit in terms of ad load and usage is shifting towards stories, which aren't monetized as effectively yet.
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