Facebook doubles fourth-quarter profit

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO

Facebook’s fourth quarter profit doubled, surprising analysts at $1.56 billion.

The figure represents a 52 percent increase from the same period of 2014.

The company pulled in $5.4 billion in revenue during the quarter that spanned September to December.

Approximately 80 percent of the company’s advertising revenue last quarter came from ads on mobile devices. The announcement came after markets closed Wednesday, but Facebook shares leapt more than 12 percent in after-hours trading.

“2015 was a great year for Facebook. Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving,” company founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world.”

Daily active users of the social media were at 104 billion, according to the statement, up 17 percent from the same period in the previous year.

If Facebook were a country, it would be more populous than the most densely inhabited nation in the world, China, where access to Facebook is censored by the government.

The company said 900 million people worldwide use the messaging service WhatsApp, while 800 million use Facebook Messenger and another 400 million use image-sharing service Instagram.

Twitter, once considered Facebook’s major competition, only has roughly 320 million monthly active users.

In a post on his personal Facebook page, Zuckerberg sent a note of gratitude to all Facebook users.

“We celebrated happy moments, from the Indian Super League to the release of Star Wars,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Millions of people rallied to support Nepal after the earthquake, France after the Paris attacks and all those affected by the refugee crisis. And every day, hundreds of millions of people just used Facebook to connect with loved ones.”

Looking toward the future, the company proclaimed the growing success of its Internet.org initiative to bring Internet access to more of the globe as well as the recent release of Samsung Gear virtual reality headset, which uses software built by Oculus, another Facebook-owned company.