Facebook Gets Another Price Target Increase Following F8 Conference

By | April 19, 2016

Scalper1 News

A positive outlook on new revenue streams from Facebook ( FB ) won it a price target increase from Needham. The new outlook was based on comments from Facebook at its F8 Developer Conference last week, which set out a 10-year strategy for the social networking giant. Facebook emphasized pushing its Messenger chat platform deeper into the business world with chatbots, enhancing live video with virtual reality and expanding the social network to remote regions of the world. Needham analyst Laura Martin raised her price target on Facebook to 130 from 115 and maintained a buy rating. Facebook stock was near 112, up about 1% during afternoon trading in the stock market today . “We are optimistic about Facebook’s new monetization efforts for Messenger, as well as several new revenue streams targeting TV ads, payments and e-commerce,” Martin wrote. She expects Facebook ad revenue in Q1 to come in at $5 billion, up 52% year over year, with mobile accounting for about 82% of that take. The consensus on earnings per share minus items, as polled by Thomson Reuters, is 62 cents, an increase of 48%. Facebook is scheduled to report Q1 earnings after the market close on April 27. The consensus estimate is for revenue of $5.25 billion, up 48% year over year. Credit Suisse analyst Stephen Ju raised his price target on Facebook to 142 from 140, in a research report Monday. Ju expects strong revenue growth to come from Messenger, Instagram and video ads. The  series of announcements made by Facebook at F8 puts the company on a solid path toward adding billions to its revenue stream, say analysts. The addition of chatbots to Messenger also moves Facebook a step closer to making Messenger a revenue generator that will reach into the billions, through ad placements and fees for other services. Analysts also see Facebook as having a multibillion-dollar opportunity in the virtual reality field, with the recent introduction of the Rift headset by its Oculus unit. Virtual reality headsets are seen as the future in gaming and entertainment. Scalper1 News

Scalper1 News