Why Facebook, Inc. Stock Popped 15% in July

What happened

Shares of Facebook Inc.(NASDAQ: FB) climbed 12.1% in the month of July, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, after the social media giant announced strong second-quarter 2017 results.

More specifically, Facebook's revenue climbed an incredible 45% year over year to $9.3 billion, 98% of which came from its advertising business. On the bottom line, net income rose 71% to $3.9 billion, and net income per share increased 69% to $1.32. Analysts, on average, were only expecting Facebook to deliver earnings of $1.12 per share.

So what

Digging deeper, Facebook also increased its daily and monthly active users by 17% year over year, to 1.33 billion and 2.01 billion, respectively.

As for its monetization efforts, mobile advertising represented around 87% of Facebook's total, up from 84% in last year's second quarter. In addition, Facebook not only managed to subtly increase the number of ads it displays by 19%, but also increased its price per ad by 24% -- a testament to the value proposition advertisers see in the platform.

Now what

That's not to say Facebook will be able to sustain this level of growth forever. In fact, during the subsequent conference call, the company reiterated its expectation that "ad revenue growth rates will come down meaningfully over the course of 2017."

Even so, Facebook stock doesn't look particularly expensive trading at around 26 times this year's expected earnings. And the company has many other avenues with which it can find incremental growth -- a list that most recently grew to include the launch of its Watch video platform, which Facebook hopes can become a worthy rival to YouTube.

So while it was no surprise to see Facebook stock pop following its stellar quarterly report last month, I see no reason it can't continue creating shareholder value going forward.

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Steve Symington has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.