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Facebook shares rally 12% on stellar mobile results

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By John Glenday, Reporter

January 30, 2014 | 2 min read

Facebook shares have rallied by 12 per cent after the social media giant announced that it had finally figured out a way of extracting cash from its legion of mobile users.

The ubiquitous network saw its revenues soar by 55 per cent to hit $7.87bn in 2013, driven by advertisers coughing up increasing sums for mobile advertising space as the year wore on.

Mobile advertising accounted for a healthy $1bn of $2.6bn in sales made in the fourth quarter, a 77 per cent increase, driving profits in the period to $523m and annual profits to $1.5bn.

The figures make for welcome reading for shareholders who have watched anxiously as Facebook struggles to rake in dollars from its mobile users since it floated in May 2012.

David Ebersman, chief financial officer, said: “We are in the early days of capitalising on a significant opportunity. Mobile continues to drive our growth. When we began 2013, we had more daily users on desktop than on mobile. By the end of the year, the number of users on mobile outnumbered desktop by around 200m.”

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, added: “It is our first billion dollar mobile quarter. In fact, our Q4 ad revenue from mobile was nearly as large as our total ad revenue in Q4 last year.”

Mobile ads accounted for over half of all advertising revenue in the fourth quarter at 53 per cent, up from 49 per cent in the previous quarter.

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