Facebook sales jumped 56 percent year over year. (Photo: Lloyd Carr / Shutterstock.com)
Facebook profited massively in the past quarter from the fact that more and more advertising expenditure is going online. Sales of the world’s largest online network jumped 56 percent year-on-year to a good 29 billion US dollars (24.5 billion euros). At $ 10.4 billion, profits were double what they were a year ago.
The decisive factor for this The main growth was an increase in the average price per ad by 47 percent, as Facebook announced after the US market closed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the number of advertisements displayed rose by only six percent. The ad spaces on Facebook are allocated in an auction process. In the corona pandemic, more and more advertisers are trying to reach people online – the competition for space on the Facebook platform is correspondingly fiercer.
Facebook records user increase
The number of users active on Facebook every day rose within three months by around 30 million to 1.91 billion. 2.9 billion users access the platform every month – 50 million more than in the first quarter. At least one of the Group’s apps, such as WhatsApp or Instagram, is used by 2.76 billion people every day – that’s 40 million more than three months ago. In Europe, the number of Facebook users declined slightly in the past quarter.
Advertising revenues soared, even though Apple broke its privacy policy in the middle of the last quarter. Activated innovations that Facebook sharply criticized. App developers must now obtain explicit permission if they want to observe the behavior of an iPhone user across different services and applications for advertising purposes. Since many reject this, Facebook warns that the ability of the online network to display advertising to specific user groups will suffer.
Apple measures will be the course of the year influence
In the current quarter, the effect of the Apple measures will be felt more strongly than in the past quarter, emphasized Facebook’s CFO David Wehner. The percentage growth in online advertising will also be lower in the further course of the year because, in contrast to the previous quarter, the fresh figures will be compared with business figures from 2020 already spurred by the corona crisis, he warned.
Facebook earned a worldwide average of $ 10.12 per user in the past quarter – almost as much as last year in the Christmas quarter. Not only Facebook is benefiting from the online advertising boom. The day before, Google, Facebook’s strongest rival in the battle for advertising dollars, had also announced a record quarter.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg took advantage of the conference call Analysts after showing the numbers to talk about the concept of the “metaverse” – a vast virtual world in which he believes people will spend more and more time. Zuckerberg wants Facebook to play a leading role in this, and most recently named several people in charge of the project.
Facebook shares fell in the after-hours Trading 3.45 percent, although quarterly results significantly exceeded analysts’ expectations. dpa
