Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has said the social media platform is moving “towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services” in a statement alongside its latest earnings report.
The young billionaire’s comment will be of particular interest to news outlets, many of which have been investing in distributing video on the platform since the advent of Facebook Live six months ago.
A change to Facebook’s algorithm has meant live video is promoted above video that is no longer live in a user’s News Feed, but there had been concerns that this could go as quickly as it came.
Zuckerberg’s comment, however, gives a clear indication that Facebook is taking video seriously.
He said: “We’re particularly pleased with our progress in video as we move towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services.”
As the company posted its second quarter financial results for this year to June 30 it revealed advertising revenue was up by 63 per cent to $6,239m (approx. £4,740m) for the quarter compared with the same period last year.
Facebook’s income from operations has also more than doubled to $2,746m (approx. £2,086m), according to the figures. Its net income was $2,055 (approx. £1,562m) up 186 per cent on last year.
Other key highlights from the report included:
- Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 84 per cent of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2016, up from approximately 76 per centof advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2015
- Daily active users were at 1.13 billion on average for June 2016, an increase of 17 per cent year-on-year
- Mobile daily active users were at 1.03 billion on average for June 2016, an increase of 22 per cent year-on-year.
Facebook has more than one billion users worldwide, including more than 30 million in the UK alone.
Picture: Reuters
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