People are still very fond of Facebook. Since its inception in 2004, the incredibly popular social media platform has gained popularity and gone from strength to strength.
This week, it boosted a yearly increase of 25% with 1.59 billion monthly users overall.
However, the way people are using Facebook is changing. The rise is fuelled by the relentless growth of its users on smartphones and tablets.
More and more people are engaging on Facebook whenever and wherever they like. With the technological advances in apps and smartphone technology, users are able to post, chat, like and share their favorite posts immediately.
"2015 was a great year for Facebook. Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO said on Tuesday.
And of course, this is a remarkable increase in the advertising revenue for Facebook.
Being able to target specific people in a particular market is one of Facebook’s strengths for advertisers. If your target market is middle-aged women who love red handbags and matching shoes, and who live within 30 miles of your retail shop, then Facebook can reach that market for you.
In the holiday quarter of 2015, Facebook income from advertising surged to $5.8 billion surpassing the $3.6 billion it generated a year earlier.
Once upon a time, advertising via smartphones and tablets was problematic for Facebook
Now, however, it accounts for an amazing 80% of the company's overall advertising revenue.
Facebook advertising sales went up to just under $18 billion. This is an increase from around $12 billion the year before.
When it began publicly trading the stock soared, but it began to flag in recent weeks as Wall Street investors began to reappraise the future of high-growth, high-risk tech companies.
If we look over the past 12 months we can see that Facebook’s growth on the stock market was steady from March of 2015 until August when it took a tumble.
It recovered and then soared until November through to December. Then it began to tumble again at the beginning of 2016.
Zuckerberg need not have worried, if he did anyway, because Facebook's stock jumped nearly 5% on Wednesday hours after trading following the release of the revenue figures.