It seems that all the effort Facebook has been investing in mobile is finally starting to pay off. Facebook’s second quarter reports released on Wednesday showed that revenue has rocketed 53% compared to the same quarter in 2012, and almost entirely thanks to mobile.
In just 12 months mobile ad revenue as a proportion of total revenue has ballooned from 14% to 41%. So while it continues to be outperformed by desktop, the gap is closing at a rapid rate and many expect it to overtake desktop, perhaps plateauing out at around 60-70%, within the next 12 months.
Most encouraging of all for Facebook, however, is that engagement levels do not appear to have been damaged by this drive on advertising, although the big challenge for user experience will come if and when they decide to introduce autoplay video. But for now it seems that the string of changes made over the last 12 months are managing to strike the right balance and with share prices back to where they were when the company first went public, Mark Zuckerberg will no doubt be feel like he has finally answered his critics and demonstrated Facebook’s viability as a serious business.
Dan
