Zuckerberg: China is one of Facebook's biggest ad markets

Steven Loeb · November 4, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/412f

Expanding into both China and India are "long-term efforts" for Facebook

With Facebook's mission to connect the world to the Internet, there are two countries that cannot be ignored due to their giant populations: India and China.

On a conference call following the release of its third quarter earnings, Doug Anmuth, analyst with JP Morgan, asked Mark Zuckerberg about his recent trips to both countries and what his key takeaways there were, in regards to Internet.org and Facebook's opportunities there.

Zuckerberg spoke about India and China, and the opportunities in those countries, separately.

"They're very different situations," he said.

With India, it's a country with 1.25 billion people, but with more than a billion of them not on the Internet, "so it is the country in the world that benefits the most from connectivity."

Connecting people there "makes a very big difference socially, and for the economy," because for people in India the Internet is not just for entertainment and basic communication.

"If you don't have access to a good school, then getting basic Internet access could be your best educational information. Or if you don't have access to a good doctor, then getting access to the Internet could be the only way you can learn about how to avoid certain diseases or how to raise your kids and have them avoid certai diseases. Or find jobs, and a lot of stuff," he said.

"For every 10 people that get connected to the Internet in India, one person gets lifted out of poverty and one new job gets created."

That is why Internet connectivity is a huge priority for the Indian government, "and anything we can do to help there, we think it's very good for the world, and we're invested in that and we're happy to support."

China, on the other hand, is a "more complex situation," Zuckerberg said.

"Obviously you can't have a mission of wanting to connect everyone in the world and leave out the biggest country, so over the long term that is a situation that we will need to try to figure out a way forward on."

It's a misconception to say that Facebook is not in China at all right now, though, he noted, since its consumer service is used there.

"It already is one of the biggest advertising markets that we have. Because there are a lot of really big and important Chinese companies who sell a lot of product to people outside of China. And they use Facebook as one of their primary tools and, in lot of cases, to spread information world about what they're doing and grow their customer base," Zuckerberg explained.

Both countries are "long term efforts" for Facebook.

Q3 numbers

Facebook posted revenue of $4.5 billion for the quarter, beating Wall Street's estimates of $4.37 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 57 cents in the quarter, higher than the 52 cents a share that analysts had been expecting.

"We had a good quarter and got a lot done," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "We're focused on innovating and investing for the long term to serve our community and connect the entire world."

Advertising revenue was $4.3 billion for the quarter. It increased 45% from the same quarter the year before. Mobile accounted for 78 percent of advertising revenue for the third quarter of 2015, up from 66% of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2014.. Revenue from payments and fees for the quarter was $202 million, an 8 percent decrease year-to-year.

GAAP net income was $896 million, while non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $1.6 billion,

Daily active users (DAUs) were 1.01 billion on average for September 2015, an increase of 17% year-over-year, while mobile DAUs were 894 million on average, an increase of 27%.

Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.55 billion on average, an increase of 14% year-over-year, while mobile MAUs were 1.39 billion on average, an increase of 23%.

(Image source: realclear.com)

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