After the closing bell Wednesday, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) posted Q3 earnings numbers, and the company continues to impress: revenues of $3.85 billion topped expectations for $3.79 billion -- growth of 49 percent year over year -- on earnings per share (accounting for stock-based compensation) basically in line with the Zacks consensus.
Mobile daily active users (MDAU) again put up strong numbers: 745 million people use Facebook daily via mobile devices, 34 percent higher than a year ago. Mobile monthly active users is up to 1.19 billion.
Why such a big focus on mobile? Because Facebook has correctly surmised the growth potential in the mobile space. With mobile ad revenues having grown 69 percent from this time last year to $3.59 billion, way up from 53 percent in the year-ago quarter. This amounts to $2.77 per mobile Facebook user.
Everything looks up for Facebook in Q4 at first blush: free cash flow has crossed over the $1 billion mark to $1.07 billion for the first time -- which may be noteworthy on the upcoming conference call with regard to an earlier statement that "2015 will be an investment year" for Facebook. But capital expenditures are also up in the quarter, while cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities has dipped quarter over quarter.
About the only thing not going up for Facebook upon its Q4 earnings post is its share price in after-hours trading: up just 5 cents or 0.07 percent despite pretty clearly strong earnings and sales numbers. This may have to do with the fact that Facebook is still trading up 40 percent or so year over year.