Facebook’s strong quarter increases social media shares

Nor is the growing threat from Apple Inc. as a major competitor not even a furious pandemic could derail the fugitive revenue train that is Facebook Inc. I Snap Inc. and Twitter Inc. they benefit from strong quotes on Thursday.

Facebook FB,
-2.62%
on Wednesday it overlooked Wall Street estimates with a 33% rise in sales, to $ 28.07 million, and a profit of $ 11.222 billion, or $ 3.88 per share. As expected, advertising accounted for a large majority of Facebook sales, but “other revenue,” such as Oculus VR headsets and Portal video chat devices, rose 156% to $ 885 million. .

“[Facebook] The results of 4Q20 generally exceed [advertising] revenues increased by + 31% year-on-year, helped by a [advertising] recovery and extended holiday season; [management] expects Q1 to remain stable or ‘modestly accelerate’, Cowen analyst John Blackledge said in a note that maintained the rating on Tuesday and raised Facebook’s price target to $ 350 from $ 340.

UBS analyst Eric Sheridan seconded that opinion and raised his Facebook price target from $ 350 to $ 330, citing “getting out of 20 with momentum” in a note Thursday.

“The engagement between the app family is very impressive,” Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said in a note Wednesday that maintains a buy rating and a $ 330 price target. He highlighted 2.6 billion daily assets across Facebook’s portfolio, while 3.3 billion monthly assets suggest that 79% use a Facebook service daily.

Facebook shares rose 1% to $ 274.55 on Thursday in the early hours of trading. Over the last year, they have increased by 31%, while the S&P 500 SPX index,
+ 0.98%
has advanced 16%.

It seems that the great holiday quarter not only benefited Facebook, but its social media siblings. Evercore ISI analyst Kevin Rippey expects Snap SNAP,
+ 8.54%
to post revenue growth of between 65% and 70% when you report results on February 4th. A strong fourth quarter, he said, accelerated Snap’s path to $ 10 billion in revenue by 2025.

Highlighting its fate at Snap, Wells Fargo raised its target price to $ 62, from $ 44.

Snap shares are up 11% in early afternoon trading.

Meanwhile, KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts Justin Patterson and Sergio Sugura updated Twitter TWTR,
+ 7.01%
to overweight the weight of the sector and set a target price of $ 65 in a note to customers Wednesday. They noted “the growing pains of the company that are about to end.”

Twitter shares rose 7.5% in early afternoon trading.

Still, not everything is rosy for Facebook by 2021.

“Every time we see Apple AAPL,
-3.50%
as one of our biggest competitors, “Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, warned in a conference call with analysts following news of the earnings. And CFO David Wehner warned the company was facing” winds most significant front-ends of advertising targeting in 2021. This includes the impact of platform changes, above all [Apple] iOS 14, as well as the evolving regulatory landscape “.

Read more: Facebook exceeds expectations but warns of “cross currents” in 2021

Baird Equity Partners analyst Colin Sebastian picked up the warning threads in a note Wednesday afternoon, in which he assigned a score above the rating and a target price of $ 310.

“Management seemed cautious, as expected, related to the harsh compendiums of growth from year to year and the potential negative impact of data privacy / iOS 14 against headwinds,” Sebastian said in a note to customers. “In addition, flattening user growth in some key markets means that revenue growth will depend more on frequency of use / time spent and / or higher advertising prices (increase in ARPU).”

.Source