Will Facebook blow expectations out of the water once again? The company s shares are up more than 2 percent to nearly $71 in anticipation of the release of its second-quarter earnings today.
The words of the day: mobile ads. More than half the company s sales now come from mobile ads, and some analysts call them must buys — not surprising given that by one estimate, Facebook makes up 20 percent of all mobile use (and 18 percent of desktop use, according to comScore). Potential future moneymakers: video ads. And the company is testing a Buy button to facilitate commerce without users leaving its site. And what about Instagram, the photo-sharing service Facebook owns? It has a huge user base and now also shows ads.
What Wall Street expects, no pressure, of course: profit of 32 cents a share (up 68 percent from a year earlier) on sales of $2.8 billion (up 55 percent).
Facebook stock is the best-performing on the S&P 500 index this year. It s up about 170 percent from a year ago, and it has climbed more than 25 percent since the social network announced Q1 earnings in April.
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