Facebook Revenue Spikes As Firm Goes Mobile

Facebook has posted a staggering revenue increase for the first quarter of 2013. Helping the firm rake in the cash: the successful implementation of mobile applications and advertisements.

According to reports, Facebook's total revenue jumped to almost $1.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31, 2013. That's an increase of almost 40 per cent from the same period last year, when revenue was just over $1 billion.

Advertising Drives Revenue Growth

The company says that its advertising revenue accounted for $1.25 billion of that total sum. This means the firm's ad work represents 85 per cent of its total sales. That's also a big increase (43 per cent) from 2012's first quarter.

As for the advertising revenue, mobile marketing accounted for about one-third of that income. (Source: businessweek.com)

Facebook chief executive officer and founder Mark Zuckerberg was obviously elated with the news. "We've made a lot of progress in the first few months of the year," Zuckerberg said.

Facebook's CEO pointed to "strong growth and engagement across our community" as an explanation for the firm's jump in revenue. (Source: pcworld.com)

Facebook Membership Continues to Expand

Facebook also continues to take on new members. The number of people using the site on a daily basis reached 665 million users during first quarter 2013, an increase of 26 per cent over last year.

Monthly active users reached 1.11 billion, an increase of 23 per cent over first quarter 2012.

Facebook's biggest victory came in the mobile universe, where the number of people using the firm's application jumped to over 750 million. That's an increase of 54 per cent.

Moving forward, Facebook's major challenges will involve getting people to use the site more (since the number of people likely to establish new memberships is rapidly dwindling) and to encourage people to click on advertisements.

The firm will also need to focus on making 'Home,' its new application for the Android platform, more appealing. The app, which is designed to make Facebook a core part of the Android mobile experience, has received only middling reviews so far.