Despite A Difficult Year, Facebook Shares Soar As It Beats Forecasts

Salon Viva Technology 2018, Startup connect : Day One

Salon Viva Technology 2018, Startup connect : Day One2018 Chesnot

Mark Zuckerberg must have been feeling vindicated on Wednesday. 

After what’s been horrible year reputationally for his company, Facebook surprised Wall Street by posting record profits for its fourth quarter, and revenues that beat expectations.

The company reported earnings per share of $2.38, up from the $1.44 it reported a year earlier and also ahead of forecasts for $2.17.  

The company’s shares were up more than 8% to $162.3 in after-hours trading in New York, which will come as some relief to investors — Facebook’s stock has declined by roughly 30% in the past six months.

Wednesday’s numbers were in strong contrast to the flurry of criticism levelled at the company recently around its privacy practices, including from tech giant Apple. This week the iPhone maker blocked Facebook from distributing internal iOS apps that its staff used for testing new services, a major shot across the bow in what’s becoming a tense battle over privacy standards. 

But none of that seems to matter to Wall Street right now. Not only are Facebook’s financial numbers growing, its user base is still growing too, countering much of the recent discourse about an exodus of users from the platform.

The company said Wednesday that 2.32 billion people were active each month across its platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, versus 2.27 billion the previous quarter.

“We’ve fundamentally changed how we run this company,” Zuckerberg said on an earnings call, adding that Facebook had invested “billions of dollars in security.”

source: forbes.com