Facebook smashes analyst targets but executive comments spook Street

Facebook Inc posted strong growth in its mobile advertising business on Wednesday but rattled investors after saying that it did not plan to boost the frequency of ads shown to users. In previous quarters Facebook has shown one ad per 20 "stories" in the newsfeed, but Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman told analysts Wednesday that the current ratio, although slightly higher than 5 percent, would not increase much more going forward. Ebersman's comments, combined with remarks suggesting that young teenage users were beginning to use Facebook less frequently, soured the mood abruptly on an afternoon when the company topped Wall Street's targets with a whopping 60 percent increase in revenue, driven by its accelerating mobile business. But Greenfield said he believed investors were over-reacting, noting that the real impetus behind Facebook's rapidly growing top line has been an increase in its advertising prices, rather than the volume of ads.

by via Yahoo! Finance: Top Stories