Facebook beats expectations again: Makes $2B in profit, hits 1.71B users

They say age takes a toll on a social product in this tech-driven age. But Facebook loves to defy all odds and all expectations setting new highs every time. The social network continued steady growth in Q2 2016, adding 60 million monthly users to reach 1.71 billion. It scored $6.44 billion in revenue and $0.97 EPS, blowing past estimates of $6.02 billion and $0.82 EPS. This is Facebook’s 16th beat out of 17 quarters since it went public at $38 per share.

Wall Street reacted to the positive earnings with a 7.5 percent bump in after-hours trading to $132.60.

The company reported a profit of 97 cents per share on $6.44 billion in revenue, the vast majority of which came from mobile ads. Those numbers blew Wall Street estimates out of the water. Analysts were looking for a profit of 82 cents per share on roughly $6 billion in revenue for the quarter.

Revenue growth was 59 percent year over year and with 84 percent of ad revenue from mobile, total ad revenue was $6.24 billion.

It also hit another milestone: 1 billion daily mobile users. Plus the DAUs reached 1.13 billion up 17 percent for the year, with 1.57 billion mobile MAUs up 20 percent.

Facebook now sees 2 billion searches per day, up from 1.5 billion a year ago. Zuckerberg said people searching for what others are saying about certain topics is driving that growth, which highlights Facebook’s on-going quest to win public chatter space.

The networking giant is also making more money for each person, $3.82 per user, which is more than the $3.60 the Street estimated. What’s also impressive is it’s higher than what Facebook generated in Q4 during the holiday shopping season, when advertising goes full throttle.

Facebook’s efficient social network operation raked in $2.05 billion in profit, compared to $719 million a year ago and after years of success, Facebook has stockpiled $23 billion in cash on hand in case it wants to make any other big acquisitions.