Facebook Reports First Quarter 2019 Results

https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2019/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2019-Results/default.aspx

by runesoerensen • 7 years ago

83 38 7 years ago

investor.fb.com

dweekly2• 7 years ago

Over 200 (+10%) in the after-hours! https://www.google.com/search?q=NASDAQ:FB

While P/E ratio is back up to 24 (after December's low of 17) that's still way more conservative than their 70-80 range a chunk after IPO: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/pe-rat...

That says to me that the markets are pricing Facebook as a relatively well-characterized business at this point and don't see the likely fines as material to the business.

(Disclaimers: I own no shares or options of FB nor am I planning to acquire any. I am a former employee.)

rdlecler1• 7 years ago

Apple had a P/E ratio of something like 12-13 and then went on to more than double it’s stock price. Markets are not always very wise.

tuesdayrain• 7 years ago

A P/E ratio of 13 seems tiny. I remember when AMZN was over 1000.

formercoder2• 7 years ago

Apple and FB have very different cap structures so let’s compare their EV/EBITDAs not P/E. FB is ~16 and AAPL is ~12. Much closer from that perspective.

arcticbull• 7 years ago

P/E ratios aren’t absolutes, they vary from industry to industry. Hardware companies have lower P/E ratios than software companies and Apple has traditionally been regarded as a hardware company.

jbverschoor• 7 years ago

I think that even didn't include their cash reserves.

fargo• 7 years ago

Stupid question, aren't employees paid partly in stock?

reissbaker• 7 years ago

Most are, but I assume the GP sold their stock, either while they were at FB or after they left.

cm20122• 7 years ago

Growing ad revenue 30% YoY with users rising 8% YoY means FB is really improving on monetizing its userbase.

cjhopman• 7 years ago

Growing ad revenue 30% YoY with users rising 8% YoY means FB is really improving on monetizing its userbase

Generally for a service like FB, just by becoming more valuable and useful to its users revenue can increase non-linearly with increases in users.

basetop2• 7 years ago

I'm sure FB improved its monetization and will continue to improve it as it grows as a company. But they also benefit from an overall increase on online ad spending - which is expected to grow 19% this year ).

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/20/emarketer-digital-ad-forec...

Nearly 19% increase in online ad spending overall + FB's 8% growth + improved monetization and you can see why FB ad rev increased 30%. Online ad spending is expect increase by double digits for many years so FB, GOOG, etc are sitting pretty as long as they can hold onto and grow their userbase.

Even if FB did nothing, their ad revenue would most likely increase by double digits every year simply because the digital ad space is increasing by double digits every year. Money is pouring into digital space and they have one of the biggest buckets.

MarkMc• 7 years ago

Most Facebook revenue comes from US and Europe where user growth is basically zero. The 8% user growth is driven by poorer countries like India and Indonesia, so the contribution of user growth to revenue would be much less - I'd say around 4%.

Also much of the increase in online ad spend comes because of the improved monetisation of online ads. If Facebook had just sat on their hands, I'd estimate that their revenue would have grown 4% due to user growth, 3% due to growth in average user income, and 5% due to increase in average screen time. That's a 12% tailwind.

Facebook's actual revenue grew 26% so it's reasonable to say that around 14% of that was due to Facebook improving their ability to match users with advertisers.

(Disclaimer: I own FB shares)

jtms• 7 years ago

I am pretty surprised the price continues to rise with the never ending torrent of bad news regarding how nefarious FB is when it comes to privacy and exploiting their users. I guess this goes to show just how few people care at all about their privacy... really makes me worry for the future.

djohnston• 7 years ago

or how overblown those concerns often are, since they are in fact being spouted by the business model that facebook effectively killed: media ads.

valleyjo• 7 years ago

Like you say, no one cares. It’s not a problem that’s in your face that you’re always seeing. It’s an abstract thing that people chose to ignore or are entirely ignorant of — to FBs benefit.

jedberg• 7 years ago

Hang out with teenagers, or even 20 somethings, for just a little while, and you'll see that privacy means nothing to them. The youngest kids are a little better, sticking to Snapchat over Facebook and Instagram (because the messages are "temporary"). But for example, when a friend of mine got into college, she posted on Facebook, "just got checked in!" along with a picture of her school ID, her room key, and the form with the room number. I told her that someone could easily get into her room with that one photo, but she didn't care.

giancarlostoro• 7 years ago

I cared a lot about privacy from my younger teen years 20 years ago while non of my friends did. If you dont understand anything about the data its all noise to you.

saagarjha• 7 years ago

privacy means nothing to them

This is a blanket statement. I’m not convinced the rate of people who don’t care about their privacy varies significantly with age.

basetop2• 7 years ago

Youngest kids are sticking to instagram rather than facebook because facebook is where their parents are. Has nothing to do with privacy. If you want to make something "uncool" to young people, get the parents involved.

rocgf• 7 years ago

I was surprised too, but then I remembered that we live in a bubble. Privacy is only a highly-emphasized topic in niche places like HN. Most people couldn't care less about this, despite knowing the high level rhetoric.

icxa2• 7 years ago

Most people couldn't care less about this,

Please stop saying things like this. Ironically, this is a "HN-ism". It is first a misunderstanding of people, and secondly a misunderstanding of privacy.

People care about their privacy when it comes up. Until people start being personally impacted, not much movement will happen. Saying "your facebook data was leaked to some analytics firm" is not going to trigger much panic. Saying "your credit card was stolen by hackers" would, which is why people reacted much more voraciously to the Target breach, than Facebook.

umeshunni• 7 years ago

Makes you realize how disconnected the media is from reality (but anyone who's lived though the 2016 US elections could tell you that).

return1• 7 years ago

i dont think that is the case. people care about their privacy, and facebook provides adequate controls to make them feel safe. they have not had leaks of private messages for example, which would be very embarassing. and compared to the wide web at large, they are have pretty good security. HN users live in a bubble where money grows in VC trees and nobody needs advertising.

kerng• 7 years ago

I think those are the last breaths before a long and epic fall that is in the making.

sytelus2• 7 years ago

* Daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.56 billion on average for March 2019, an increase of 8% year-over-year.

* Monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.38 billion as of March 31, 2019, an increase of 8% year-over-year.

* Headcount – Headcount was 37,773 as of March 31, 2019, an increase of 36% year-over-year.

cm20122• 7 years ago

The headcount is mostly hiring manual moderators.

polishTar• 7 years ago

Moderation is probably done by contractors or vendors, not employees.

mindfulplay• 7 years ago

People keep harping on about 'delete Facebook': it doesn't matter because they have laid cookies everywhere and have already built a profile. Newly born people will at least have some connection through their other properties that will help lay their Pixel tracker all over the web properties.

romanovcode• 7 years ago

Doesn't it not work if you use uBlock? I thought it blocks FB pixel so they have no idea about your web doings.

Facebook Reports First Quarter 2019 Results

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