Facebook Q1 revenue up 42% to £3.54bn

Mobile now accounts for 73% of Facebook’s ad sales, as the social tool posted £3.32bn in ad revenue for Q1 2015, up by 46%.

Facebook’s revenue is up 42% over the same period last year to £3.52bn, while its market share also continues to grow.

According to eMarketer, Facebook accounted for 8% of the $145bn online advertising space in 2014, compared with 6% the year before.

The news comes as Facebook now serves up more than four billion videos to users daily, posing a terrifying threat to Google – from which Facebook has been aggressively targeting.

AdWeek outlined a few other key marketing-related nuggets of interest that you should pay attention to:

• Monthly active users, or MAUs, rose 13 percent year-over-year.
• Mobile-only MAUs totaled 581 million, or 40 percent of the platform’s total audience.
• North America accounted for 49 percent of its revenue.
• Revenue from payments and other fees fell 5 percent from the previous year due to a consumer shift from desktop to mobile gaming.

Justin Taylor, UK MD of Teads said: “Facebook’s results show how its increasing emphasis on video is starting to pay off, as the social giant bids for a greater share of the fastest growing digital ad spend category.

“It’s clearly a compelling argument for many, with  Facebook now pushing video above all other content and serving more than 4 billion spots to users daily. But naturally, advertisers only want to pay for people who actually watch their videos and by charging advertisers for just 3 seconds of viewing, Facebook could run into difficulties.

“Brands will also have to decide whether the platform’s colossal reach trumps the risk of their messages appearing alongside inappropriate content.”