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Zuckerberg: Facebook has “become a mobile company”

Allan Swann
January 31, 2013

Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has used the company’s fourth quarter earnings results to announce that it is at last “a mobile company.”

Facebook saw some strong results – the company boasted a 40% increase in revenue, but a drop in profit (from $302 to $64m – which was ahead of analyst expectations) stemmed from the company’s aggressive expansion, especially in mobile markets where it has been lacking. Advertising remains the company’s key source of revenue (being a free website), accounting for 84% of total revenue.

The company boasts 1.06bn users overall (up 25% from last year), but more importantly, saw a 57% increase of Monthly Active Users (MAU) on mobile devices – more importantly, Daily Active Users on mobiles surpassed desktop computer users.

Smartphone and tablet users accounted for 23% of the company’s total revenue – up from 14% in the last quarter.

Rumours flying around concerning the ‘Facebook Phone’ (rumours that have existed for the best part of 4 years) were once again vehemently denied by Zuckerberg. Indeed, making your own smartphone seems a bit daft when every smartphone platform is desperate to have you (see our BlackBerry 10 launch coverage here).

Given the strong(er) results, it appears that Facebook has taken on board much of the criticisms levelled at it by analysts – especially after the muddled (and overvalued) IPO launch – namely that it hadn’t figured out how to make money off mobile users. Problem solved. The one thing that will be worrying is Facebook gaming, which appears to be on the decline (like most other forms of video game playing, smartphone based app games are taking over).

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