Mobile Ads Help Facebook Beat Expectations

Facebook posted a 60% revenue increase in the third quarter thanks to mobile advertising growth. The numbers beat Wall Street's expectations for the second consecutive quarter. The world's largest social network said today that it earned $425 million, or 17 cents per share, in the July-September period. That's up from a loss of $59 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue grew to $2.02 billion from $1.26 billion, helped by increasing mobile advertising revenue. Analysts, on average, were expecting revenue of $1.91 billion.

Facebook's advertising revenue was $1.8 billion, up 66% from a year ago. Mobile ads accounted for 49% of the company's total ad revenue during the quarter, compared to 41% last quarter. The increase shows Facebook's strategy to become a "mobile-first" company is paying off. There were 1.19 billion Facebook users as of the end of September, up 18% from a year ago. Of these, an average of 728 million users logged in every day during the month of September, up 25% from a year ago. (More Facebook stories.)