Facebook has just posted its fourth-quarter earnings, revealing it now caters for a staggering 1.39 billion active users.
This means Facebook is still miles ahead in terms of total users for social networks, beating out the big services like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.
It also means that Facebook has seen a 13 per cent leap in total active users since a year ago.
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“Our community continues to grow and we’re making progress towards connecting the world.”
Right, so how much money did Facebook actually make? A shed-load apparently, with the earnings call revealing Q4 2014 profits of $701m (£462) – a 34 per cent rise year-on-year.
This means profits for the year amounted to $2.9bn (£1.92), which is just short of double the profits seen in 2013.
Profit per dollar was down however, falling from 44 per cent to 29 per cent thanks to big investment in marketing and R&D.
In fact, Facebook has tripled its R&D spending to a massive $1.1bn in the last quarter, likely a result of developing its big-bucks acquisitions like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus VR.
Related: Apple smashes its all-time record with 74.5m iPhone sales
The firm also reported an increase in advertising revenue by 53 per cent, amounting to a sizeable $3.59bn (£2.37bn). It’s also worth noting that 70 per cent of that was purely from mobile ad sales.
Facebook also bitterly noted that had they excluded the impact of ‘year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates’, its revenue would have increased by 53 per cent rather than 49 per cent.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
