Facebook's second quarter profits surge by 186%, hits $2bn

Facebook announced on Wednesday that its second quarter profit rose to 186% flying past Wall Street estimates for the social media network. The company’s shares also rose 6.7% hours after trading on same day.

The company reported that its profit had reached $2 billion, as its global user base grew to 1.71 billion. Mobile advertising revenue played a massive role in the current gains as it accounted for over 80% of the company’s total advertising revenue.

“Our community and business had another good quarter,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive.

“We’re particularly pleased with our progress in video as we move towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services,” he added.

Facts worth knowing

• Mobile advertising revenue accounted for 84% of the company’s total advertising revenue, compared with 76% a year earlier.
  ​* Total advertising revenue surged 63% to $6.24 billion US, beating the average analyst estimate of $5.80 billion, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.
• Facebook is one of the biggest gainers as advertisers move money away from TV to the Internet and mobile platforms.
• The company has been beefing up its presence in the mobile video market, with Snapchat and YouTube posing strong competition.
• The company’s Facebook Live is an area they are enticing advertisers to experiment with.
  Facebook said about 1.71 billion people used the site monthly as of June 30, up from 1.49 billion a year earlier.
• The net income attributable to Facebook’s stockholders rose to $2.05 billion, or 71 cents per share, in the second quarter ended June 30, from $715 million, or 25 cents per share, a year earlier.
• Total revenue rose 59.2% to $6.44 billion, compared with the estimate of $6.02 billion.