Facebook And Its All-Time High: Going Forward For More

Facebook logo - globeThe social network giant Facebook is achieving the next things it can be proud of. The company has notched another quarter of revenue that beat estimates after stepping up its mobile-advertising efforts, with a reported third-quarter sasles of $4.5 billion, compared to $4.37 billion estimated by average analysts.

Furthermore, the company has boosted the number of monthly users up to 14 percent to 1.55 billion.

More users for Facebook is like saying more ads. By running the world's largest network, it's putting more and more ads in front of its vast growing audience.

Facebook's revenue is also powered by its strategy in putting advertising to Instagram, its mobile photo-sharing app, and the number of video ads on its main platform. With those efforts, Facebook is working its way up to over 1 billion daily users.

With that many users, Facebook is earning $2.97 for each user: a 14 percent climb from the latest period. Profit excluding some items was 57 cents a share, compared with analysts' prediction that was 52 cents. The company's net income rose to $896 million from $806 million, making its stock climbed 1.3 percent to $103.94 or 33 percent increase this year (about 25 percent increase since mid-August).

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has been working to improve the quality of Facebook in overall. But if that is not enough, the company is also investing in initiatives that include virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI).

This was stated by David Wehner, Facebook's Chief Financial Officer, when he said that the company would continue to spend on virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other moves to prepare for the future, especially as the main business remains strong.

"We are investing aggressively in the future," said Wehner. "We see great opportunities."

Zuckerberg said that although virtual reality is an exciting investment area for Facebook, he's not expecting it to grow fast.

Facebook 2015

Grow First, Monetize Later

Facebook's strategy is to get as much users as it can, then use that amount of users to get more advertisers. All that by giving free services to everyone involved.

Its strategy is by making people to sign in with their real name and identities. By making them to share more and use Facebook more, Facebook will now a lot about each and every users. With that in hand, the company can expand the ad audience by tracking and targeting them effectively, boosting its appeal to advertisers.

Facebook's main way to get more users can be seen when it acquired WhatsApp with a astonishing price. Without even needing to monetize the platform, as the principle of its founder Jan Koum, Facebook is getting a boost by more than 900 million users from it alone. By separating Facebook from its other services, Facebook standalone app Messenger is having more than 700 million.

Read: WhatsApp And Facebook Messenger: Getting To The Top Of The Food Chain

As its latest attempt, Instagram was monetized by bringing ads using Facebook's advertising system. With Instagram, Facebook is able to expand its audience to more than 400 million users.

The company has been experimenting with many ways to bring its free services for a good use. One of which is its Internet.org initiative which aims to bring the rest of the non-connected world to the internet.

The company has also experimented in ways to get people to interact with brands on Messenger. Neither of those properties is delivering a meaningful boost to revenue, but that isn't its priority. Facebook's priority is just to get more users.

So first users, then even more users. Then monetize.

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Aiming For The Giants

By becoming one of the largest network on the web, Facebook may have less to no worries about some less popular social media as well as other tech companies that aren't in its league. But since Facebook is going no where but up, it's going face-to-face with the still undisputed giant: Google.

The tech and search engine giant is still having the most share of internet ads with more than 30 percent. But Facebook is closing the gap increasingly fast, predicted to hit around 17 percent anytime soon. But eating away Google's market share isn't easy, and going straight against it is against its strategy.

What Facebook did is to use its ever-growing number of users to stay at Facebook, and love it the way it is. This is for them so they wouldn't be anywhere else. Especially to places that are its competitors.

Such example can be seen when Facebook' is allowing users to upload video directly to its platform. The auto-play video feature is an increasing challenge to YouTube which is Google's primary way to get online video ads revenue.

As the company expands, it's expected to grow even more massive. Most of Facebook's revenue comes from the U.S.. On the average, it's making around $10 per user in the country, if compared to Asia-Pacific which earned Facebook around $1.4. The company is yet to penetrate China which is its largest advertising market. Exporters are looking for ways to reach customers outside China, and that they're using Facebook to do this.

Zuckerberg said that he's dedicated to enter China eventually.

"You can't have a mission of connecting the world and leave out the biggest country," said Zuckerberg. "That is a situation we are going to need to find a way forward on."

What Facebook did, does, and predicted will do, are what made investors eager in following the social giant. They're keen on updates, looking for ways for Facebook to expand its family of standalone apps, including how Facebook monetize Instagram, and what it will do to WhatsApp.

Further reading: Facebook In the 2015 Tech Industry: The Social King Among The Relentless Giants