Facebook Courts Small Businesses to Drive Mobile Ad RevenueFacebook's second-quarter earnings showed impressive revenue growth, boosted by small businesses.
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It is often said that small businesses are the backbone of a healthy economy. The same might soon be said of their importance to Facebook's revenue.
Facebook's second-quarter earnings beat analyst expectations, registering a profit of $333 million on revenue of $1.8 billion, up 53 percent from one year ago. Much of that revenue growth came from a dramatic increase in sales of mobile advertisements, which accounted for 41 percent of the company's $1.6 billion in ad revenue in the second quarter.
Mobile traffic was up as well, with 819 million users accessing Facebook from a smartphone or tablet. That represented an increase of 51 percent from the second quarter of 2012.
As mobile grows, small businesses are steadily buying a larger share of ads, Facebook said. In the second quarter, Facebook surpassed one million active advertisers on its platform, many of whom are local businesses. This is no coincidence; Facebook has reportedly been wooing small-business owners as of late as it seeks to compete with Foursquare and other companies whose apps help users interact with businesses in their area.
Facebook的股票在盘后上涨17%trading on Wednesday. It has continued to gain since the market opened Thursday, now trading near $33 a share. While still shy of the initial $38 share price at its IPO over one year ago, investors finally have reason to feel good about its prospects.
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