The company attributed the ad revenue growth to a 47% increase in the average price per ad.
Facebook’s ad revenue has increased 56% year-over-year to a total of $28.58bn in Q2 of 2021. The majority of the company’s revenue, which totalled $29bn, came from advertising.
The company attributed the ad revenue growth to a 47% increase in the average price per ad, as well as a 6% increase in the number of ads delivered during Q2. Similar to Q2, it expects advertising revenue growth to be driven primarily by year-on-year advertising price increases during the rest of 2021.
For Facebook, daily active users were at 1.91bn on average in June, up 7% year over year. Daily active users across all of the company’s apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) averaged 2.76bn for the month of June, up 12% on an annual basis.
In the earnings report, Facebook said it expected to see “increased ad targeting headwinds” from regulatory and platform changes, most notably Apple’s iOS update that allows users to opt-in or out of ad tracking, during the third quarter.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he wants to make Facebook the “best place” for creators to make money, with the hope that quality content will follow, and isn’t concerned with trying to convince creators to exclusively post on Facebook. Earlier this month, the company announced that Facebook and Instagram will pay out $1bn in creator incentives through 2022.
“We had a strong quarter as we continue to help businesses grow and people stay connected,” added Mark Zuckerberg. “I’m excited to see our major initiatives around creators and community, commerce, and building the next computing platform coming together to start to bring the vision of the metaverse to life.”
Facebook expects 2021 total expenses to be in the range of $70-73bn, unchanged from the prior outlook. The year-over-year growth in expenses is driven primarily by investments in technical and product talent, infrastructure, and consumer hardware-related costs. It expects 2021 capital expenditures to be in the range of $19-21 billion, unchanged from our prior estimate. Our capital expenditures are driven primarily by our investments in data centers, servers, network infrastructure, and office facilities.
