Facebook’s ad revenue jumps 43% in Q2

Advertisers are rapidly shifting their Facebook Inc. advertising spending to the social network’s mobile ads.

Marketers spent roughly $2.91 billion on Facebook mobile ads during the second quarter, about 76% of the social network’s total ad revenue, Facebook reported Wednesday. That’s up about 75% compared with a year ago. That reflects the significant amount of time consumers spend on Facebook-owned platforms; On average, users spend 46 minutes per day on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram (that doesn’t include WhatsApp), said CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a conference call with analysts.

The shift to mobile advertising reflects the fact that a lot of consumers—1.31 billion—access the social network from mobile devices. And 655 million, exactly half of those mobile users, exclusively look at the social network on mobile devices. More than one out of every five minutes on smartphones in the United States is spent on Facebook, said Sheryl Sandberg, the platform’s chief operating officer.

“We believe we have the best performing mobile ad product in the market and video’s making it even better,” she said. “With so many consumer videos being watched on Facebook, video ads are a natural part of the news feed experience. For marketers, video has always been a compelling format. Now Facebook enables mass reach and cross device targeting and measurement abilities far superior to what other platforms offer.” 

• $4.042 billion in total revenue during the quarter, a 38.9% increase from $2.910 billion in the same quarter of 2014.
• $3.827 billion in advertising revenue, a 43.0% increase compared with $2.676 billion.
• Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 76% of all ad revenue during the quarter, up from 62% a year ago. That would indicate mobile ad revenue was approximately $2.908 billion during the quarter, a 75.3% increase compared with $1.659 billion.
• $2.76 in average advertising revenue per worldwide user, up 23.2% from $2.24 a year ago. Facebook calculates average revenue per user as its total revenue during a given period, divided by the average number of monthly active users at the beginning and the end of the period; that is why the average revenue per user doesn’t equal revenue divided by its number of active users.
• $9.30 in average advertising revenue per user in the U.S. and Canada, up 44.4% from about $6.44 a year ago.
• Net income was $719 million, down 9.1% from $791 million.
• 968 million daily active users, an increase of 16.8% compared with 829 million last year.
• 1.490 billion monthly active users, up 13.1% from 1.317 billion.
• Mobile daily active users of 844 million on average for June 2015, an increase of 29.1% from 654 million.
• Mobile monthly active users were 1.310 billion, a 22.4% jump from 1.070 billion. 
• Of those monthly active users, 655 million only accessed Facebook through mobile apps or mobile versions of its web site. That’s up 64.2% from 399 million.

For the first half of the year, Facebook also reported: