Social networking giant Facebook, Inc. continues to bring in the big dollars, with the company reporting new record highs in both the fourth quarter and 2015 as a whole.

Revenue at Facebook topped $5.84 billion in the fourth quarter, up just shy of $2 billion from the $3.85 billion it made in the same period in 2014 and well ahead of the $5.37 billion predicted by market analysts.

Earnings per share (Non-GAAP) came in at $0.79, ahead of market expectations of $0.68 and $0.54 in Q4 2014, while net income grew from $701 million in the same quarter last year to $1.56 billion.

Advertising came in at $5.6 billion for the quarter, also beating the $5.2 billion predicted by analysts, and up 57 percent from $3.6 billion from Q4 2014.

Mobile advertising continues to lead Facebook’s growth and accounted for 80 percent of ad revenue in the quarter, up from 69 percent of revenue from the same period the year before.

Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter came in at $692 million while total costs and expenditures at $3.281 billion, 21 percent higher than the same quarter of 2014, but notably a figure that grew far less than revenue.

Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $18.43 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015, and free cash flow for Q4 coming in at $2.14 billion.

Facebook’s user growth shows no sign of slowing, yet with the company seeing 1.59 billion monthly active users, up 14 percent year-over-year, and 1.44 billion are monthly mobile users, up 21 percent over Q4 2014.

Daily active users now total 1.04 billion, up 17 percent, and 934 million mobile daily active users, up 25 percent over the same quarter in 2014.

2015

The numbers for the full year not surprisingly reflect both a record fourth quarter, and record third and second quarters as well.

Revenue for the full year 2015 came in at $17.93 billion, up 44 percent year-on-year, while income from operations was $6.23 billion, up from $4.994 billion in 2014.

Net income for the period was booked at $3.69 billion while free cash flow for 2015 was $6.08 billion.

“2015 was a great year for Facebook. Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving,” Facebook Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world.”

No breakdown

There’s nothing bad that can be said about Facebook’s Q4 financials, and even previous areas of concern, such as expenditure growing faster that revenue has been finally addressed, as can be seen in the remarkable chart above which shows that the amount Facebook is spending as a percentage of revenue continues to decline.

The only possible thing that was disappointing is one that has nothing to do with how successful Facebook is doing, but one of disclosure: once again there was no breakdown on where the additional revenue is coming from, something that many Facebook followers and investors would love to see.

We do know, for example, that Instagram advertising is surging, but exactly by how much in total? With figures broken down investors could get a better idea on exactly which parts of the business are seriously growing, particularly at a time when the core Facebook social network itself has to eventually hit a ceiling given there are only so many people in the world, be it that they haven’t hit it yet.

To the surprise of no one, the market loved the news with FB stock surging 12.12 percent in after-hours trading to $105.90 a share.

Image credits: pestoverde/Flickr/CC by 2.0 + Facebook