Clear winners and losers are emerging from the coronavirus crisis. There was some concern that Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) would be a loser given its dependence on small business advertising. However, it's results disprove this concern.
Its first-quarter results indicate that while advertising was down in March, it has already beginning to rebound strongly in April. Further, weakness in ad rates has been offset by people spending more time online using Facebook's services which increases the number of ads delivered to customers.
Inside the Numbers
Facebook beat analysts' expectations in terms of nearly every major figure including revenue, earnings, margins, and user growth. Earnings came in at $1.71 per share which was above expectations of $1.65, and revenue in the first quarter was $17.74 billion which beat expectations of $17.41 billion. The company also reported 1.73 billion daily active users, and 2.6 billion active monthly users with average revenue per user of $6.95.
So far, Facebook has been successful in growing its number of active users and becoming more effective at monetizing them. In Q1 2017, average revenue per user was just over $4. This number should continue to grow as more advertising moves digital, and Facebook's algorithm continues to improve in targeting ads.
Like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Facebook said that advertising picked back up in April which indicates that the disruption was temporary. Typically, advertising is closely linked to overall economic growth rates. However, for Facebook and Google, the underlying secular trend of more dollars migrating to digital ads is more powerful than the temporary disruption of the coronavirus.
Facebook is also seeing growth in its live-streaming platforms on Facebook and Instagram due to stay-at-home orders in many parts of the world. These users are spending more time on the platform which increases opportunities for delivering ads. Additionally, the company is looking to monetize WhatsApp by setting up payments within the app and opportunities for small businesses to sell products and connect with customers.
Stock Price Performance
Among the FAANG stocks, Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) were the first to recover and even have exceeded pre-coronavirus levels. Facebook and Google were laggards, as it was expected that a soft economy would affect their earnings. However, recent earnings from both companies seem to have dispelled these concerns. Facebook is now just under 5% off its late-February high.