Facebook is putting up a series of record numbers. The world's most famous social network surprised Wall Street by closing the third quarter with rising revenues and profits, surpassing General Electric and becoming the sixth company in the S&P 500 on Wall Street. At the same time, the unstoppable growth in the number of users continues, reaching 1,5 billion contacts in the third quarter of 2015.
And in the wake of these data, the Facebook share soars over 3% on the stock market, while the group's managers can only express satisfaction: "Our advertising investment policy has paid off", commented Sandberg after the publication of the quarterly .
Driven by ad revenue growth, Facebook saw revenue climb 41% to $4,5 billion compared to the 3,2 billion recorded as at 30 September 2014. The figure was higher than the 4,37 billion indicated by the market. Advertising revenues, on the other hand, grew by 45% to $4,3 billion.
Double-digit growth also for i profits that stood at $896 million from $806 million of a year before. In terms of earnings per share, they were 31 cents and reached 57 cents excluding non-recurring items, beating analyst forecasts that estimated an adjusted EPS of 52 cents.
Driven by record numbers, Facebook increases its weight on Wall Street becoming the sixth company in the S&P 500. Now the social network weighs 308 billion against yesterday's 293 billion, while General Electric stops at just under 299 billion . Facebook thus becomes the sixth market power behind Apple (679 billion ) Alphabet (Google, 511 billion), Microsoft (435 billion), Exxon Mobil (358 billion) and Berkshire Hatthaway (336 billion) .
