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Facebook earnings report for Q4 2012: mobile usage overtakes desktop

Social & Digital

Facebook earnings report for Q4 2012: mobile usage overtakes desktop

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The final 2012 quarterly results are in for social network giant Facebook and it seems that users are becoming increasingly more mobile than ever when checking in, updating their status and posting random thoughts. New figures show mobile daily active users outweighed desktop daily active users for the first time in last year’s fourth quarter.

Releasing its results for Q4 2012, Facebook also reached 1.056 billion users in the three months to December, a 25% year-on-year increase from Q4 2011.

The largest increase of users emanated from Asia, most notably Japan, while global daily active users grew to 618 million, a 34 million increase from last quarter.

Facebook reports that  some 680 million of its monthly active users use mobile devices, an increase of 248 million since Q4 2011 (57%).

On the move and connected, exploring the world for business or pleasure – that’s the new status quo for Facebook users. It’s a capture-everything-around-you type mentality. Around 157 million of those monthly active users are mobile only – a 108% increase year on year.

Principal analyst at Ovum, Eden Zoller, believes that Facebook has accelerated and revamped its mobile presence in order to bring back the advertisers after key players, General Motors and Kia, lost faith with its online advertising last year.

“Mobile is helping boost advertisers’ interest in the social network,” says Zoller.

“What stands out from Facebook’s Q4 results is the centrality of mobile for its service strategy and growth. Revenues from mobile advertising accounted for 23% of total advertising revenues compared to 14% in the previous quarter, with sponsored stories in the mobile news feed and app install ads proving effective,” she adds.

Over the next quarter, it will be interesting to see the effect brought about by the recently-announced Graph Search, the feature Zuckerberg and Co. will be hoping attracts increased advertising dollars via sponsored search.

 

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