Facebook Misses 1st Time in 11 Quarters; Plus GILD, QCOM
For the first time since Q4 2015, Facebook FB has missed earnings expectations, putting up $1.74 per share. True, it's only a one-penny miss, but revenues also came in lower than expected -- $13.23 billion versus $13.43 billion in the Zacks consensus. Shares have fallen 9% on the news in late trading upon the earnings release.
Both Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU) also missed analysts' expectations for the quarter. MAUs of 2.23 billion was a tad short of the 2.25 billion estimated, and DAUs reached 1.47 billion, down from the 1.49 billion expected. The company stated that 66% of Monthly Active Users check in with Facebook daily. Revenues rose another 42% in the quarter year over year, though this is still down from the 49% anticipated. Ahead of the release, Facebook had issued warnings that user numbers were expected to flatten.
Though, if you think about this in sheer numbers, Facebook is still demonstrating that it is a tremendous success. Average Revenue per User (ARPU) rose 2 cents to $5.77, which is a truly excellent number. Keep in mind also that this was supposed to be the quarter where customers were going to be down on Facebook. How many companies would trade their "good" quarterly showings with Facebook's "bad" Q2 numbers?
Cap-ex has gone up for the company, as expected -- $3.46 billion illustrates Facebook's Investment and Safety segments. Headcount is up 47% year over year to 30,275 employees; many of these are monitoring accounts and fighting off abuse of the social network. For more on FB's earnings, click here.
Qualcomm QCOM, meanwhile, has blown the doors of expectations for its fiscal Q3 2018: earnings of $1.01 per share far outperformed the 71 cents expected, and revenues of $5.6 billion easily surpassed the $5.2 billion in the Zacks consensus. Earnings also outpaced the year-ago figure of 83 cents per share. The company also announced a new share buyback program, to the tune of $30 billion overall. Shares are up nearly 3% in after-market trading.
Gilead GILD also zoomed way past analysts' expectations in its Q2 earnings this afternoon, posting $1.91 per share on $5.65 billion in quarterly sales. Estimates had been for $1.55 per share on $5.18 billion in revenues. Surprisingly, however, Gilead CEO John Milligan has announced he will be stepping down from the head of the company by year's end; no immediate replacement has been named. Shares of GILD are up 4% in late-market trading.
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Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.
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