The social networking site Facebook is now considered as the top 6 in terms of being the most valuable in S&P 500, overtaking Johnson & Johnson.
Facebook's first-quarter results show an increase of 52% in revenue, bringing in a total of $5.382 billion. Analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence only expected Facebook to reach $5.25 billion.
USAToday states: "Facebook far exceeded expectations for nearly every metric, even as other tech companies disappointed, sending its shares (FB) soaring 11% to an all-time high of $120.79 and giving the company a $30 billion bump to its market cap. Shares closed up 7% to $116.73."
The network's growth is brought by the success of their mobile advertising and the continuous rise of video advertising. Mobile advertising accounts for 82% of the total advertising revenue for the first quarter.
It is now a norm for Facebook to have videos automatically playing (without sound) even when the user does not click on it. The site has also introduced advertising on photo-sharing service Instagram. The network has an estimate of 1.65 billion users.
Meanwhile, according to eMarketer, Facebook is predicted to account for more or less 12% of the $186.81 billion global digital advertising market in 2016. Furthermore, Pivotal Research also is expecting Facebook to capture at least 47% of the global digital advertising growth.
"Facebook continues to generate very high and very profitable growth. An extremely rare combination. And we see in Facebook plenty of strong, secular platform growth ahead," RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney said.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter further said that Facebook has an "insurmountable competitive edge."
The reports about Facebook's growth has been well-received especially after results of other tech companies were revealed last week and earlier part of this week.
Other companies that have reported a decrease in their earnings include Apple (AAPL) and Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL).
