Facebook Inc. on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter earnings of $3.56 billion.
On a per-share basis, the Menlo Park, Calif., social media giant said it had net income of $1.21. Adjusted for one-time gains and costs, earnings were $1.41 a share.
The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.34 a share.
Facebook posted revenue of $8.81 billion in the period, which also beat Wall Street forecasts. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $8.47 billion.
Analysts said Wednesday they expected the company, led by Mark Zuckerberg, to report growth in its user base and ad sales.
Despite some investor concerns that Facebook wasn’t attracting younger users as much as rival social media apps such as Snapchat, analyst surveys show that the company continues to have good market share across a range of ages.
“We think the market’s big enough right now for a couple leading social players,” Aaron Kessler, managing director at Raymond James, said Wednesday morning. “We don’t think competition impacted Facebook much.”
Facebook’s ad numbers probably will receive a boost from election-related advertising, he said. The company’s advertising results also will be helped by Instagram, which, according to Kessler’s estimate, now represents about 10 percent of Facebook’s total ad dollars and drives “incremental revenues.”
