"We still face a declining headwind, because games payments revenues are still coming primarily from desktop users."
- Facebook CFO David Ebersman notes that, while the company's shift to mobile is mainly going as planned, games on the platform aren't translating so smoothly.
As part of Facebook's 2012 fiscal year results, Ebersman noted that the social network has seen notable growth in both monthly and daily user counts globally as it continues the big shift to mobile -- but that revenue from games on the platform was flat in 2012 compared to 2011.
It's not a huge surprise, given that there are already mobile stores in place for developers to sell their games from, and this could potentially be a serious problem for Facebook's future monetization plans.
But Ebersman isn't giving up that easily, stating, "We want Facebook to be the default social infrastructure for mobile games."
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2012, Facebook reported revenue of $5.1 billion, up from $3.7 billion year-over-year, and profits of $53 million, significantly down from profits of $1 billion in 2011.
The company put this down to the transition to mobile, with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg stating that the platform now enters 2013 in a strong position.
Facebook app on my droid is basically a piece of crap. You know it's bad when you use the browsers instead. Maybe if they fix that I'll look at their games. Well....no I wont, but they should still fix that app.
All mobile payments go through Android Market or iTunes(Apple). They get the 30%.
Facebook's options are:
1. Create their own mobile device/OS
2. Push anti-trust litigation against Apple/Android's dual monopoly of mobile commerce