Overview of Facebook Q1 stats, highlights

In Q1 2016, more people continue to use Facebook:

• More than 1.65 billion people now use Facebook each month and 1.09 billion each day (up 16% compared to last year.)
• More than 1.5 billion people accessed Facebook from mobile devices in March, up 21% from last year.
• In recent weeks, they’re consistently seeing more than 1 billion people using Facebook on mobile every day.

Over the next three years, they will invest in their most developed ecosystem – the Facebook app and platform:

• Globally, people spend more than 50 minutes a day using Facebook, Instagram and Messenger (this does not include WhatsApp.)

Over the next five years, they will build ecosystems around their products:

• Video is a medium that allows people to interact in new ways. In addition to normal internet video, they are focusing on more interactive video experiences like Live and 360 video.
• Game of Thrones was the most watched 360 video on Facebook in a 24-hour period with more than 12 million total views.
• Messenger: Two of the top messaging apps in the world. 900 million people use Messenger every month, and 1 billion people use WhatsApp every month.
• Between Messenger and WhatsApp, people send around 60 billion messages every day (almost 3x as many messages as SMS handled at its peak.)
• At F8, Announced bots for Messenger.

Over the next 10 years, they will invest in new technology to help everyone connect:

• As part of Internet.org, they're building an open source telco infrastructure called TIP to make it cheaper to operate mobile networks.
• Free Basics now features more than 600 services and has brought more than 25 million people online. That makes it one of the most successful connectivity initiatives in the world.

Build technology in virtual and augmented reality:

• Gear VR shipped in Q4. There are now hundreds of apps specifically for Gear, and people have watched more than 2 million hours of video on it.
• In Q1, they shipped Oculus Rift. More than 50 games built for Rift. Most Rift early adopters are gamers and developers.

In Q1, they continue to make progress on three priorities in ads.

• More than 1.5 billion people accessed Facebook from mobile devices in March, up 21% from last year.
• One of the drivers of the consumer shift to mobile is mobile video.
• New: People are sharing and creating nearly 3X more video on Facebook than they were a year ago
• New: As of February 2016, the time people spent watching videos on Instagram increased by more than 40 percent over the preceding 6 months.
• New: On average, captioned videos increase view time by 12%. Facebook introduced Auto Captions so marketers can generate captions for their video ads. For example, Nestle took a TV ad for Natural Bliss Coffee Creamer and in less than a day, edited it for mobile feed by creating a new opening and adding text overlays to relay their message without sound. Nestle showed both the original TV ad and the mobile ad on Facebook. On Facebook, the original TV ad drove a 4 point increase in ad recall. On Facebook, the new mobile version drove a 10 point increase in ad recall and a 7 point increase in product awareness.

• More than 3 million active advertisers on Facebook and more than 200,000 on Instagram. A significant number of these advertisers are small and medium businesses. Small businesses are using products like Lead Ads, Slideshow, and Dynamic Product Ads.
• In Q1, Facebook introduced new ad formats, like Canvas ads, to help marketers make the most of mobile feed and give brands a more immersive way to showcase their products by combining video, images, and call-to-action buttons.
• Seeing adoption across many verticals.
• To motivate millennials to take on do-it-yourself projects, Lowe's and BBDO targeted 25-34 year-old homeowners with Canvas ads that let them see bathroom designs, discover the products in each design, and tap to purchase. The ads were so engaging that people spent an average of 28 seconds interacting with them, and Lowe's saw a 6.7 times return on ad spend.

• On the measurement side, Conversion Lift is being used to scientifically measure how Facebook and Instagram campaigns drive business objectives like sales, and clients across verticals - from retail to auto - adopt it to prove the return on their investments.
• In Q1, Facebook expanded its Lift capabilities by testing Lift API, enabling more partners to prove the effectiveness of their campaigns. For example, Chase bank used Conversion Lift to measure how effectively their Super Bowl ad drove credit card applications. They found that combining Facebook video ads with their TV spend drove 1.5 times more conversions than TV ads alone.