Facebook Beats as Mobile Revenue Jumps to 41 Percent of Ads Business

Facebook's numbers are in, and they look good across the board - especially in mobile.

The social giant posted its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon, reporting earnings per share of 13 cents on revenue of $1.81 billion. That beats analysts' expectations of an EPS of 14 cents on revenue of $1.62 billion.

But the biggest point of interest here is in the breakdown of Facebook's revenue numbers. Mobile revenue, the most closely watched part of Facebook's business, accounts for 41 percent of Facebook's total revenue. That's a leap from accounting for nearly 30 percent just last quarter.

"One of the things this quarter says to us is that News Feed ads work," Facebook CFO David Ebersman told AllThingsD in an interview. "They're really creating compelling returns for our advertisers."

Facebook has faced intense criticism from investors over the past year and a half, as Wall Street voiced concerns that the company couldn't adeptly handle the massive shift from desktop to mobile use. Most of Facebook's advertising products were optimized for desktop users for as long as the company has been around, and only over the past year has it tried to shift toward a "mobile first" environment.

The company, however, has made some inroads with new mobile advertising products - in particular with its mobile app installation ads aimed at application developers.

"They're growing very rapidly," Ebersman said of the ad product. "And we're enthusiastic because the app ecosystem is such a fast-growing and dynamic area - developers need effective ways to help people discover what they have built."

As far as overall user growth, Facebook is still increasing in both new users and engagement. Facebook's daily active users increased to 699 million, a jump of 27 percent year over year. And monthly active users swelled to 1.15 billion, a 21 percent increase year on year.

But again, the biggest number of note here is the mobile MAU number. Monthly active users on mobile jumped to 819 million, an increase of 51 percent year over year. Talk about a shift from desktop to mobile.

"We've made good progress growing our community, deepening engagement and delivering strong financial results, especially on mobile," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a canned statement. "The work we've done to make mobile the best Facebook experience is showing good results and provides us with a solid foundation for the future."

Facebook's stock is up nearly 20 percent in after hours trading, hovering around $31 per share.

Tune in to my colleague Peter Kafka's live coverage of the earnings call here.

Facebook Trading at Highest Price Since Week of IPO

On an average day, over the past year, shares of Facebook have hovered in the low-to-mid 20s, at least 10 points beneath the company's debut price of $38 per share in May of last year.

But Thursday was not an average day.

Following the news of a massive earnings beat on Wednesday afternoon, shares of Facebook are trading at their highest levels since IPO, at nearly $34 per share about an hour before the market closes. That's a single-day gain of nearly 30 percent.

Probably worth noting, too, that Facebook's trading volume is at a high, with more than 300 million shares exchanging hands before market close. That's a volume number that's second only to the company's IPO date, where more than half a billion shares moved through the market.

What drove the massive gains? Facebook finally showed a drastic shift from desktop to mobile monetization in its earnings numbers, as mobile ad revenue now accounts for 41 percent of Facebook's overall ads business.

Mobile first? Perhaps not quite yet, but soon enough.

From TWTR to THEG -- Penny Stock Changes Ticker After Twitter Confusion

Sometimes, stories that seem too funny to be true are, in fact, true.

I'm speaking of last week's confusion with Tweeter Home Entertainment Group's stock listing.

After Twitter announced in its S-1 filing last week that it would trade under the symbol TWTR, Tweeter's stock - which is listed as TWTRQ - shot up more than 2,000 percent. (A "Q" affixed to the end usually signifies that the company is in bankruptcy proceedings.)

Confused buyers went so crazy over Tweeter's stock that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority had to step in and place a temporary halt on the shares.

FINRA wants to clear up the confusion. Effective as of Tuesday morning, Tweeter's new ticker symbol will change to THEGQ, FINRA decided, in order to avoid any "further confusion," according to a filing on the FINRA website.

"FINRA believed that trading in the TWTRQ security demonstrated a widespread misunderstanding related to the possible initial public offering of an unrelated security," the agency wrote.

Probably a good idea, considering the hype for Twitter's forthcoming initial public offering. The company - which has yet to state an exchange or a listing date - is seeing high-enough interest that financial analyst Robert Peck, with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, has rated the stock a "buy," with a price target of $50 by the end of next year.

As for Tweeter? Shares were trading at $0.0121 on Tuesday morning, down 76 percent from the previous day's close.