Social media giant Facebook Inc. has revealed its revenue statement for the second quarter of the year, and the total income now stands at $29.08 billion, having grown by an impressive 56% year-on-year, making Q2 2021 the quarter that has seen the fastest growth in terms of the company’s revenue since 2016. Additionally, the growth as compared to the previous quarter was also significant, standing at 48%. Moreover, the actual figures have also come out to be greater than the expected value of $27.89 billion, which definitely is something to be happy about.
Out of its revenue sources, the Mark Zuckerburg-led platform has said that the advertisement front was among the winners, with average prices per ad going up 47%, and the number of ads delivered rising by 6%. All in all, the total ad revenue went up by 56%. The ad revenue is apparently all set to grow during the remaining of 2021, mainly fueled by year-on-year increases in ad prices.
Meanwhile, the Others segment, which deals in consumer hardware like Oculus, among other things, raked in a total of $497 million, which is significantly lower than than the estimated $685.5 million. Nevertheless, a growth of 36% year-on-year was registered. Additionally, the incoming free cash flow too, standing at $8.51 billion, remained in want of the estimated $9.08 billion.
But this high growth rate in the second quarter might not last, as the company has warned that it expects the “year-over-year total revenue growth rates to decelerate significantly on a sequential basis as we lap periods of increasingly strong growth.” At the same time though, Facebook had said something similar at the start of Q2 as well, perhaps in a bid to not jinx the growth, who knows?
But there’s another roadblock, as the social media giant also says that the new iOS updates might make it more difficult to target ads, and claims that this could have a bearing on the performance in the third and fourth quarters.
The user base across all of the firm’s services, including the Facebook app, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, went up some 600 million between April to June, standing at 3.51 billion at the close of Q2. Meanwhile, the monthly active users (MAU) rose to 2.9 billion, up 7.4% from last year.
CEO Mark Zuckerburg recently held a virtual conference with analysts, elaborating on his hopes for Facebook Inc.’s future, as well as the goals of developing “a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces.” He added, “In the coming years, I expect people will transition from seeing us primarily as a social-media company to seeing us as a metaverse company.”
Just as the revenue statement came in, Facebook’s shares went for a dip of around 5% during after-trading hours, even as earning per share more than doubled year-on-year in Q2. The EPS stood at $3.61 per share, as opposed to the expected $3.03 per share. Over the past year, Facebook has seen a total return of 62.3% on its shares, which remains significantly above the S&P 500 total return, which stands at 36.7%.
