Image: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press
Facebook just got a nice birthday present ahead of its 10th anniversary.
Facebook stock opened at $62.10 a share on Thursday, an 16% increase overnight and the stock's first time above the $60 mark, following a strong fourth quarter earnings report that beat Wall Street estimates across the board.
The social network reported Wednesday that its ad revenue had grown 76% year-over-year to $2.34 billion, driven by significant gains on mobile. For the first time in its history, mobile ads now account for the majority (53%) of Facebook's total ad revenue.
To put that another way, Facebook generated more revenue from mobile ads in the December quarter than it generated from desktop and mobile ads combined the same quarter a year earlier. The company also revealed that it now has 945 million mobile monthly active users and is quickly approaching the one billion mark.
That shift has led to renewed optimism among analysts and investors, many of whom who had raised red flags about Facebook's mobile prospects in its first days as a public company. Multiple analysts responded by raising their price targets for the stock.
"Results surpassed our expectations on almost every metric and the highlight was Mobile advertising," Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee, wrote in an investor note. He raised his price target for the stock to $70 from $60 previously.
"We are incrementally more positive on revenue in the early part of 2014 given our read on these results, as they once again suggest underlying revenue tailwinds that are stronger than we expected," Brian Wieser, a senior research analyst with Pivotal Research, wrote in a research note. He raised his price target from $63 to $65.
Facebook's market cap jumped by more than $20 billion overnight, hitting $150 billion.
The strong earnings report comes less than a week before Facebook celebrates its 10th anniversary, a milestone that many Internet companies never reach. During the earnings call Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that "it's been an amazing journey" and said the goal in the coming year would be to put out "new and engaging mobile experiences."
To that end, Facebook unveiled a new standalone app Thursday morning called Paper, a social news reader. The app is part of a broader effort from the company to cater to specific use cases without having to cram every feature into the main app. In this way, Facebook hopes to continue to boost mobile engagement and perhaps stay more nimble in competing with other social startups over the decade to come.
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