Facebook's earnings

Facebook reported record revenue growth in the second quarter. However, Facebook shares fell after the company's chief financial officer warned that it expected a "significant slowdown" in revenues in the second half of 2021.

Facebook (FB) shares fell after the close of trading on Wednesday, reacting to the company's forecast of a revenue decline in the second half of the year.

Experts believe that Facebook CFO David Wehner's warnings of a second-quarter revenue decline have already become a pattern. He has talked about a decline in every second quarter for the past five years, but his pessimistic forecasts have not come true. For example, his forecast for revenue growth in the third quarter of last year was only "about 10%", while in fact it was up 22%.

Facebook shares are up 36.65% YTD and 62% over the past 12 months, outperforming the stock market average. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indices are up 17% and 35% year-to-date and 14.5% and 40% respectively over the last 12 months.

After hitting a new high of $372.5 on Monday, Facebook's market capitalisation surpassed $1 trillion.

Facebook's report was preceded by strong reports from Google Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Twitter (TWTR) and Snap (SNAP) as the digital advertising market benefits from global economic recovery and rising consumer spending. Analysts note particularly strong growth in ad spending in the tourism and entertainment sectors, which are experiencing a boom in demand following the end of quarantine measures.

Facebook's Q2 2021 report

Earnings per share rose to $3.61. Total earnings for the second quarter doubled to $10.4bn, up from a profit of $5.2bn a year ago.

Facebook posted record revenue growth of 56% to $29.08bn.

Facebook's revenues have grown strongly for four consecutive quarters: over 21% in the third quarter of 2020, 33% in the fourth quarter, then 47% in the first three months of this year.

Average revenue per user (ARPU): rose to $10.12, above analysts' expectations of $9.66.

The number of new Facebook users continued to grow at a small pace in the second quarter, generally in line with analysts' forecasts. The number of daily active users (DAU) was 1.91 billion and monthly active users (MAU): 2.90 billion.