[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] The world's largest social media company, Facebook, continues its strong performance with second-quarter net profit surpassing $10 billion.
On the 28th (local time), Facebook announced its second-quarter earnings, reporting revenue of $29.077 billion (approximately 33.5548 trillion KRW), a 56% increase compared to $18.687 billion in the same period last year. This exceeded Wall Street estimates of $27.81 billion.
Net profit reached $10.394 billion, up 101% from $5.178 billion in the same quarter last year. Earnings per share also recorded $3.61, surpassing market estimates of $3.03.
This strong performance was driven by increased advertising revenue. Facebook's second-quarter advertising revenue rose 47% year-over-year. Other revenue, including hardware such as virtual reality (VR) Oculus devices, increased by 36%.
The number of ads delivered to nearly 3 billion subscribers increased by about 6%, and the average price per ad also rose, leading to higher revenue and net profit.
Benefiting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of monthly active users (MAU) reached 2.9 billion, and daily active users (DAU) reached 1.91 billion in the second quarter, each increasing by approximately 7% compared to the same period last year.
However, Facebook expects revenue growth to slow down from the second half of this year. It is anticipated that targeted advertising revenue will shrink significantly due to Apple's data collection restrictions.
Facebook stated in its earnings report, "We expect revenue growth rates to slow significantly in the third and fourth quarters of this year," adding, "The impact on advertising revenue from Apple's mobile operating system (iOS) updates is expected to be greater from the third quarter than in the second quarter."
Following the outlook for slower revenue growth, Facebook's stock, which had surged about 39% since early this year, showed a decline of over 3% in after-hours trading on the day.
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