Cantor Fitzgerald analysts Youssef Squali, Naved Khan, and Kip Paulson look at some recent trends in US mobile data from comScore and how they relate to some large companies.
Our analysis of US mobile data (from comScore) shows that smartphone usage continued to see healthy growth in visitation and engagement for most major advertising and ecommerce
players in January vs. 4Q:13. Given mobile’s growing share of overall visitations, if these
trends are sustained into February and March, it would bode well for 1Q results for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), in our view.
Facebook (FB, BUY)
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) notched a slight improvement in monthly and daily unique visitor (MUV and DUV) growth on smartphones in January vs. last quarter, with MUVs up 10% Y/Y and DUVs up 19% vs. 6% and 13%, respectively in 4Q:13 (exhibits 1 & 2). Smartphone engagement (DUV/MUV) crept up to 64.3% vs. 63.9% in the month of December, while the total time spent on smartphones was up 43% Y/Y in January vs. 44% in December (exhibits 3 & 4). We view this data positively, as it indicates healthy user growth and continued sequential improvement in engagement (consistent with Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s preferred DAU/MAU metric), despite concerns in 3Q:13 about declining teen usage in the U.S. Additionally, 65% of Facebook’s total unique visitors accessed the social site via mobile in January and approximately 24% were exclusively on mobile.
Google (GOOG, BUY)
Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s saw 2% Y/Y growth in smartphone MUVs and a 23% growth in DUVs, implying that the company continues to see a healthy increase in usage. January growth numbers also imply an improvement over the -4%/8% Y/Y growth in these metrics respectively in 4Q. We believe these figures are consistent with Google’s dominance in mobile search, as well as continued growth in YouTube/Display ads.
Twitter (TWTR, SELL)
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s smartphone visitor and engagement growth saw a robust uptick in January, with MUVs and DUVs both up 28% in January vs. 20%/5% growth in 4Q. Engagement (DUV/MUV) increased 24.9% vs 25.3% in December, while total minutes spent on Twitter on smartphones were up 79% vs. 52% in December. Additionally, 62% of Twitter users also used a mobile device to access the service with 44% exclusively using it on mobile. The data shows continued strength in user growth and acceleration in time spent (consistent with management’s commentary that time spent per timeline view increased in 4Q, despite deceleration in total timeline views).
Amazon (AMZN, BUY)
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) saw a pickup in smartphone traffic in January, with MUVs and DUVs up 27%/45% vs. 22%/25%, respectively, in 4Q. Approximately 52% of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s total unique visitors in January also used a mobile device to access the site, with approximately onethird of the total unique visitors accessing the site exclusively through a mobile device, attesting to the growing importance of this channel for the company. We view the strong growth in smartphone visitation in January positively for 1Q.
eBay (EBAY, BUY)
eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s smartphone traffic saw 24%/25% in smartphone MUV/DUVs, respectively, relatively consistent with the 23% Y/Y growth in both these metrics in 4Q. Of the company’s total unique visitors, 59% also used a mobile device to visit the site, with 29% of the unique visitors exclusively using a mobile device to visit the site, highlighting mobile’s growing importance for the business.
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