Facebook (FB) and AT&T (T) were two of the several big names to report quarterly earnings after the bell today. Facebook posted earnings of 23 per share (accounting for stock-based compensation), a penny light of the Zacks consensus estimate of 24 cents, on revenues of $3.54 billion, which was also a tad light of expectations. AT&T met earnings consensus of 63 cents per share, though $32.6 in sales was short the $32.8 billion expected.
Facebook cited foreign exchange headwinds for the lighter sales result, but most other metrics look good for the company's Q1, in particular mobile daily active users (MDAU) up 31 percent year over year to 798 million and mobile monthly active users up 24 percent from Q1-14 to 1.25 billion. Overall, revenues increased 42 percent year over year despite expenses increasing 83 percent from a year ago.
After-market traders have taken FB shares a bit lower on the news, but there's really not much bad news here. Ad revenue growth did not hit 50 percent in the quarter but it was still 46 percent, and mobile advertising now makes up 73 percent of Facebook's total revenues. And this during what's generally considered a seasonally weak Q1 period.
That said, Facebook stock is trading near its all-time high even with the after-hours dip, and is up roughly 43 percent year over year. Still, 2015 has not been especially kind to the social media giant: year to date the shares are up 8 percent, but only about half of one percent in the last month. Guidance and specifics on its WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger businesses will be addressed on the company's conference call.
AT&T, on the other hand, is seeing a pop in share price after-hours, to the tune of about 1.6 percent. The company still has not issued an earnings beat in the past four quarters, but the company's OK earnings announcement may be helping AT&T benefit for the same reason Facebook is down a bit: over the past month, the stock is down about 1 percent, -2 percent year to date and over 8 percent from this time last year. AT&T also stated its DIRECTV acquisition is expected to close sometime in Q2.
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