Facebook squeaks by revenue estimates, but shares plunge

Facebook quarterly earnings call
Facebook's barely made their revenue goals

After stumbling with the launch of its IPO, Facebook returns with better than expected numbers for its second quarter earnings report.

Facebook earned total revenue of $1.18 billion in its second quarter, an increase of 32 percent over last year's $895 in revenue.

Advertising makes up the bulk of Facebook's earnings, representing $992 million of its total revenue, a 28 percent increase over last year.

Payments and fees, such as those made by users, made up the rest of the company's revenue accounting for $192.

Facebook's major mobile growth

Facebook's largest success for the past quarter came from the expanded rollout of its Sponsored Stories feature.

The feature enables advertisers to promote posts about their products, giving those posts prominent placement and wider circulation in user news feeds.

By the end of June Sponsored Stories brought in revenue of $1 million each day, with half of that from mobile users.

Mobile will be a large focus for Facebook going forward, as the social network saw a 67 percent increase in monthly active users on mobile devices to 543 million users.

Facebook's overall userbase continues to grow as well, with a 29 percent increase in monthly active users to 955 million, and a 32 percent increase in daily active users up to 552 million users.

"Our goal is to help every person stay connected and every product they use be a great social experience," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said. "That's why we're so focused on investing in our priorities of mobile, platform and social ads to help people have these experiences with their friends."

No Facebook phone?

It seems Facebook is not prepared to go fully mobile quite yet, or at least not on the record about it. When the rumored HTC Facebook phone was brought up during the Q&A portion of the earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg was quick to shoot it down saying that a smartphone "really wouldn't make much sense for us to do."

Instead, Zuckerberg wants Facebook to focus on improving its mobile apps and integration with all mobile devices.

"We want not just to have apps that people use, but be as deeply integrated as possible, where other apps can build on top of Facebook," Zuckerberg said.

With the Facebook smartphone still a year away according to the most recent rumors, it may simply be too early to offer an official word on the device. But if deep smartphone integration is what Facebook is after, having their device is the natural next step.

Facebook stocks take a tumble

Not too long after Thursday afternoon's earnings call, Facebook's shares began to take a dive.It seems that investors weren't impressed with the social network's 32 percent revenue increase after its first quarter as a public company, and stock prices fell to $24 - a 10 percent decline.

This is an all time low for Facebook's stock, further echoing the company's struggles since its troubled IPO in May. The Valley and the market will be watching to see if Facebook's stock drops any further by tomorrow's opening bell.