Facebook records best ever fiscal quarter, driven by mobile advertising

Last week, shares in Facebook rose by 28% after the company recorded its best-ever fiscal quarter, pulling in roughly $1.6 billion from advertising. 

Facebook’s strong showing is largely due to the huge increase in revenue the social network is making from mobile advertising. Facebook now has 819 million monthly active mobile users, up 51% from the same period last year. Impressively, 41% of Facebook’s revenue now comes from mobile, up from virtually nothing a year ago. 

Mobile advertising revenue is expected to further growth as a result of the rolling out of 15-second video ads across the social network, as well as the introduction of advertising on Instagram. Analysts at Jefferies & Co predict the introduction of the 15-second video advertisements as being particularly important, stating that they could be ‘Facebook's next billion-dollar business’. Morgan Stanley is also predicting that video marketing will increase Facebook’s advertising revenue by over 10%.

Also, Facebook owned ‘Instagram’, with its 130 million users, looks set to introduce advertising initiatives soon and thus boost revenues. Mark Zuckerberg stated last week that Instagram ads are expected to generate 'a lot of profit' for Facebook 'when the right time comes’.