Facebook’s ad revenue surges in Q3 2014

Facebook has reported revenues of $3.2 billion in Q3 2014, comfortably ahead of analysts’ forecasts and 59% higher than the same period last year.

The social network also reported an $806 million profit, a 90% increase on the same quarter a year ago.

The increased profits were driven by another formidable three months for Facebook’s advertising business.

Ad revenues for July to September were sharply higher than a year ago.

Perhaps most telling as an indicator of its future profitability was Facebook’s performance in mobile advertising.

Mobile ads now make up 66% of its total advertising revenue.

A year ago they accounted for less than half of it, and at the time of its stock market debut in 2012 Facebook’s mobile ads barely brought in any money at all.

Just as important to social networks as their earnings, are their user numbers, which in Facebook’s case were also better than many expected.

As of the end of September, Facebook had 1.35 billion active users every month, 14% more than in 2013.

And the number of people checking their Facebook page at least once a day jumped 19% to 864 million.

“This has been a good quarter with strong results,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive.

Nevertheless investors seemed disappointed that Facebook hadn’t beaten Wall Street analysts’ forecasts by an even greater margin.

Facebook shares fell as much as 8% in after-hours trading in New York.