Facebook’s stock and Mark Zuckerberg's net worth are soaring after the company's second quarter earnings report Wednesday, which surpassed Wall Street expectations.
Facebook’s complex business model and much improved mobile presence, which is attractive to advertisers, has boosted the company significantly.
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Zuckerberg said that 41 percent of Facebook's total advertising revenue came from mobile,
up from 30 percent in the last quarter, according to Yahoo! Finance.
The news sent Facebook’s share soaring, with trading at its highest since its IPO in May 2012. The IPO was $38 per share, and yesterday the share closed at $34.36, up from the low $20 range.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported Zuckerberg's 485.6 million shares in the company became much more valuable as well, bringing his net worth to $16.1 billion.
It was not long ago that
Facebook's IPO was, as Sam Gustin of Time magazine put it, "widely considered one of the most disappointing public stock offerings in U.S. history." Shares fell to $26 each earlier this year, some 30 percent less than its IPO.
On Wednesday, Facebook reported revenue of $1.81 billion, while Wall Street analysts expected $1.62 billion, according to Yahoo! Finance.
Facebook also announced this week that its active mobile users were up by 51 percent this year compared to last year, an important indicator for financial experts.
In Gustin's Time article in May, he said Facebook was beginning to turn things around with its mobile users.
"In the first quarter of 2012, Facebook’s mobile revenue constituted zero percent of its total revenue," Gustin wrote. "Perhaps most important, Facebook’s share of mobile time spent online is (now) soaring, offsetting desktop declines. Facebook’s share of mobile minutes has doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent over the last year, according to JP Morgan. The company has also begun packing more ads into the News Feed."
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