Facebook Beats the Street

Revenues jumped, but Menlo Park-based Facebook still posted a third quarter loss Tuesday.

Facebook reported its third quarter earnings after the closing bell Tuesday and the numbers beat the street.

Facebook reported a loss in Q3, but said its revenue's jumped by about 30-percent. The revenue jump was helped by gains in mobile.

Facebook's stock was up 90 cents to $20.40 in after-hours trading.

The world's biggest social media company posted a loss of $59 million, or 2 cents per share, in the July-September period. That's down from earnings of $227 million, or 10 cents per share a year ago, when Facebook was still privately held.

Excluding special items, mainly related stock compensation expenses, Facebook earned $311 million, or 12 cents per share, in the latest quarter.

Revenue rose 32 percent to $1.26 billion from $954 million.

Analysts had expected earnings of 11 cents per share on revenue of $1.23 billion, according to FactSet.

Tuesday's earnings release was only the second since the company went public.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

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