Strong fundamentals
To capture just how staggering Facebook's momentum is, consider some key metrics from the company's third-quarter update. Revenue during the period increased 35%, fueled primarily by a 33% year-over-year increase in advertising revenue as the social-network platform specialist saw its total unique daily active users across all of its platforms increase 11% year over year to 2.81 billion. Unique monthly active users across its platforms rose 12% to 3.58 billion.
For its fourth quarter, Facebook guided for revenue to be between $31.5 billion and $34 billion, reflecting a big seasonal increase from Q3 revenue of $29 billion. The midpoint of this guidance range translates to year-over-year growth of 17%. Facebook's guidance is usually quite conservative, however, so actual growth for the period is likely to be higher.
Investors should also note Facebook's impressive cash generation. The company's trailing-nine-month free cash flow amounts to $25.9 billion, up from $13.8 billion in the year-ago period and $15.8 billion in the same period two years ago. On a trailing-12-month basis, Facebook generated a whopping $35.8 billion in free cash flow.
This strong cash generation has resulted in a massive war chest of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, totaling more than $58 billion. This strong cash position, combined with the company's robust cash generation, has enabled Meta to buy back shares aggressively. The company repurchased $14.4 billion of its shares in Q3 alone and announced a $50 billion increase to its share repurchase authorization when it reported its third-quarter results.
To capture just how staggering Facebook's momentum is, consider some key metrics from the company's third-quarter update. Revenue during the period increased 35%, fueled primarily by a 33% year-over-year increase in advertising revenue as the social-network platform specialist saw its total unique daily active users across all of its platforms increase 11% year over year to 2.81 billion. Unique monthly active users across its platforms rose 12% to 3.58 billion.
For its fourth quarter, Facebook guided for revenue to be between $31.5 billion and $34 billion, reflecting a big seasonal increase from Q3 revenue of $29 billion. The midpoint of this guidance range translates to year-over-year growth of 17%. Facebook's guidance is usually quite conservative, however, so actual growth for the period is likely to be higher.
Investors should also note Facebook's impressive cash generation. The company's trailing-nine-month free cash flow amounts to $25.9 billion, up from $13.8 billion in the year-ago period and $15.8 billion in the same period two years ago. On a trailing-12-month basis, Facebook generated a whopping $35.8 billion in free cash flow.
This strong cash generation has resulted in a massive war chest of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, totaling more than $58 billion. This strong cash position, combined with the company's robust cash generation, has enabled Meta to buy back shares aggressively. The company repurchased $14.4 billion of its shares in Q3 alone and announced a $50 billion increase to its share repurchase authorization when it reported its third-quarter results.