Facebook shows the way to other tech giants

Facebook is answering questions that its rivals cannot. Big technology firms have mostly reported sub-par second-quarter earnings, with desktop software giant Microsoft the leading victim of the shift to mobile computing.

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By contrast, Mark Zuckerberg's social network is thriving on portable gadgets, and Facebook's revenue growth - 53 per cent to $1.8 billion in the quarter - was the fastest since its initial public offering in May last year. There's more fuel here.

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The number of people going to Facebook via mobile devices continues its inexorable rise. Of the 1.15 billion people who visit the site monthly, more than 800 million now do so via smartphones and tablets.

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More importantly, Facebook has figured out how to sell advertising on those smaller screens. Mobile now accounts for more than 41 per cent of all advertising revenue, up from about 30 per cent last quarter and close to nothing a year ago.

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Not only is Facebook serving up lots of mobile ads, it is getting more revenue out of each one. According to the company, the price per ...

That's notable when Internet search giant Google is seeing its revenue per ...

The mobile advertising engine is revving up, too. Users are spending a lot of their time on mobile devices, but as yet only about 2 per cent of global ad spending is aimed at smartphones and tablets, Facebook reckons.

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It seems nearly inevitable that advertisers will eventually spend more money and time reaching people on their handheld gadgets. At one stage there were questions about Facebook's ability to capitalise on that trend. Now it looks like one of the few tech firms that has figured out how to do just that.