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Facebook rapidly turning into mobile powerhouse

The number of Facebook users accessing the social network site via mobile applications continues to grow, pointing to consumers? appetite for sharing information on the go.

The number of monthly active users for Facebook?s mobile apps recently passed 300 million, according to Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis in a blog post. This puts mobile app use for Facebook at nearly 40 percent of total access.

"More and more people have smartphones and they are spending more time on them," said Josh Williams, president of user analytics firms Kontagent, San Francisco. "Facebook wants to be wherever users are, and today that means providing a great experience on mobile devices. 

"Facebook says they expect the majority of their use, and even their internal focus, to be on mobile in the coming years," he said. "We see many Facebook app developers doing the same thing: expanding dramatically by following their users onto mobile."

Mobile at the core
The numbers speak to the continuing growth that Facebook is experiencing in mobile and which is expected to continue.

Back in September, Facebook said it had 800 million total users and 350 million mobile users across the mobile Web and apps. The force behind the growth in Facebook app use since then are the iOS and Android platforms, according to Mr. Evans.

Both iOS and Android saw significant increases in mobile device activations as well as app downloads during the November and December holiday period.

The news comes as overall use of social networking sites via mobile devices continues to grow. In a recent report, Juniper Research predicts that 1.3 billion consumers will rely on their mobile devices to access social media sites by 2016.

Facebook?s growth in mobile could help boost its expected initial public offering for stock next year, which could be one of the biggest IPOs in the past decade.

Next year Facebook will begin to look at mobile as its core product as it continues to move its iOS and Android apps toward being wrappers for a common HTML5 experience, according to Mr. Evans.

Facebook is also expected to launch a mobile advertising strategy next year as it continues to look for ways to monetize its significant user base.

"For marketers, Facebook's move onto mobile holds a great deal of promise," Mr. Williams said. "Facebook already provides innovative ways to find and message users who like brands and products or fit demographic and geographic categories. 

"Gaining access to these users via Facebook's mobile ad units is a great new way to leverage marketing dollars in a relevant context for users," he said. "And you can certainly expect Facebook to roll out more and more innovation here, no doubt leveraging location and other information in the future."

One of the Facebook?s potential advantages in mobile advertising is the size of its installed user base and the amount of data it has about consumers as a result.

The growing number of consumers accessing Facebook via mobile apps only strengthens the social network?s potential role in mobile advertising.

In-app advertising in particular could provide a strong opportunity for Facebook as the number of users accessing Facebook via an app continues to grow. Facebook could become a strong distribution channel for mobile apps and offer in-app advertising.

Google vs. Facebook
As Facebook positions itself to be a bigger player in the mobile space, it is competing more directly with other mobile names.

By going into mobile advertising, this puts Facebook in direct competition with Google.

At the same time, Facebook is facing growing competition from the Google + social network. Recent reports suggest that Google is on pace to have 65 million subscribers by the end of this month and that its growth is accelerating.

A Facebook mobile advertising offering could be attractive to marketers who realize the need to think more strategically about how to insert social media into their mobile efforts as the convergence between social and mobile continues. Facebook has the potential to make significant revenues from mobile advertising.

Mobile social media provides a way for marketers to develop brand awareness and reward consumers for certain types of behavior, such as bringing friends to a restaurant.

The connection between and mobile, social and advertising is expected to be one of the big trends in mobile next year.

"Today, many users-- especially younger users-- already spend as much or more time on their smartphones and tablets as they do on laptops and desktops," Mr. Williams said. "Mobile computing is the future and any social network would be insane not to provide a great experience to their users on all mobile platforms. 

"The same goes for app developers and for marketers... where there are customers, there is opportunity, and more and more people will continue to spend more and more time on mobile devices in the future," he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York