It was not that long ago that Mark Zuckerberg was significantly worried that Facebook would fall behind as consumers quickly transitioned to accessing the Internet and content through mobile devices.
In 2012, when Facebook first noticed that more people were accessing the social network on mobile than desktop, he initiated a mobile-first strategy, even throwing an engineer out of a meeting when he showed a mockup on desktop.
Prioritized acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram followed, as well as the splitting of functionality into mobile apps and a very public fail-fast-fail-often approach to trying new things (remember the Facebook Home)?
Judging by Facebook’s Q2 results, released yesterday, that strategy was more than sound. Revenue rose 63% year-over-year and revenue rose 59%. Y-o-Y Mobile daily active users rose 17% to 1.13 billion and monthly active users rose 20% to 1.57 billion as of June 30, 2016.
All of those are positive, but perhaps the most impressive of the stats was percentage of mobile advertising revenue devoted to mobile. In 2Q2 015, that figure was 76% of mobile revenue. In Q2 2016, it was 84%.
Whatever crises Facebook found itself in in 2012 has long passed. Facebook is now a mobile-first company with the data and revenue to prove it. More on the results from TechCrunch.
