Not for the first time, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) has been facing down more than one scandal in recent weeks. Earlier this month, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen accused the company of putting profits over safety and stating that she believes Facebook's products "harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy".
Just hours earlier, the company had to deal with an hours-long outage across its platforms. Needless to say, October hasn't been a great month for this US tech giant so far. Since 1 October, Facebook shares have fallen around 4.5%.
But investors in this social media giant might find some solace in the company's latest financial report. Facebook has just reported its earnings for the quarter ending 30 September (Q3).
For the 3 months ending 30 September, Facebook announced revenues of US$29.01 billion. That was up 35% year over year on the prior corresponding quarter's US$21.47 billion. Of that US$29.01 billion, US$28.28 billion came from advertising revenue (up 33% year over year) and US$734 million from 'Other' (up 195%).
However, total costs and expenses also rose to US$18.59 billion. That was up 38% from the US$13.43 billion in the prior corresponding quarter.
Facebook reports 17% growth in net income
Even so, Facebook managed to report US$10.42 billion in income from operations, up 30% year on year. Net income also rose 17% from US$7.85 billion to US$9.19 billion.
That led the company to report diluted earnings per share (EPS) of US$3.22 for the quarter, up 19% from US$2.71 year on year.
Meanwhile, active users were up for the company across the board. For the Facebook app over the month of September, daily active users rose by 6% year on year to 1.93 billion. Monthly active users were 2.91 billion, also a 6% rise.
For family daily active users (family includes Facebook as well as the company's other apps like Instagram and Whatsapp), the company reported 1.93 billion, up 11% year on year. Family monthly active users were 3.58 billion, an increase of 12%.
Facebook also announced a fresh US$50 billion injection for its share buyback program. We looked at this in more depth earlier today.
Turning to guidance, Facebook told investors that it is expecting to report "total revenue to be in a range of $31.5 billion to $34 billion" for the upcoming quarter ending 31 December 2021. The company noted that "our outlook reflects the significant uncertainty we face in the fourth quarter in light of continued headwinds from Apple's iOS 14 changes, and macroeconomic and COVID-related factors".
Facebook last closed at a share price of US$328.69, up 1.26% for the day. That gives this tech giant a market capitalisation of US$926.72 billion. However, the stock climbed by another 1.79% in after-hours trading to US$334.57 a share, perhaps reflecting the impact of this earnings report.
