Facebook's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was once again able to present his investors with record figures: the Group's profit in the third quarter rose to almost 2.38 billion dollars, almost three times as much as a year ago. The advertising revenue of the social network increased to seven billion dollars and rose by more than 50 percent. Nevertheless, the share price of the company fell sharply after the announcement of the figures on Wednesday. In part, the paper in the after-market trade was almost ten per cent in the minus.

Dave Wehner, the CEO of Finanzchef Dave Wehner, had triggered the sudden withdrawal of trust from the investors with a cautious warning: In the coming year, sales are not expected to grow so quickly, but at the same time, the plan is "aggressive" investments.

Slower growth in sales, more costs - in other words, the profit in the coming year will not grow or grow again so fast.

Facebook is the place for advertising

Wehner, as the reason for his warning, mainly contributed a factor - the so-called "Ad Load", the utilization of the Facebook online ads with advertising. The Group has continued to increase this utilization in recent years. Users see more and more advertisements and paid contributions on their screen and in their news streams, which reduces the relationship to the contents of friends and relatives, explained Wehner. Now, Facebook has reached the maximum of what users are willing to tolerate.

"The increase in advertising utilization was one of the three main factors driving our sales growth. In the future, this factor will contribute significantly to growth, "explained the financial expert.

Already in the telephone conference for the second quarter Wehner had warned that Facebook is the place for even more advertising advertisements: "The optimal utilization of advertising is a mixture of science and art. We need to ensure that each user's feed has the right balance between advertising and organic content. "

Mobile advertising accounts for 84 percent of advertising sales

In other words, Facebook itself does not know exactly when, which users turn away annoyed, because they do not see anymore the actual relevant postings of their friends.

Particularly on the small screens of mobile devices the place is limited - but now, Facebook achieves 84 percent of all advertising sales.

As a result, the Group must consider other strategies for future growth: it must further increase the number of its currently 1.79 billion users in order to generate more space for advertisements.

But there is a catch: Facebook is growing only slowly in the industrialized countries like the USA or the countries of Europe because there are already many Internet users have an account. Indeed, Facebook is now only able to expand in emerging and developing countries - but the group deserves less per ad.

More videos for more commercials

For this reason, the second strategy is particularly relevant to Facebook: the so-called premium ads can earn the company more per advertising space. Special advertising spots, which are shown before commercial services, reach high prices in the advertising market. This is why Facebook is struggling to play more video advertising - and is currently collecting video material from various media partners.

But this is also a point of concern: Facebook had been criticized, as the company artificially raised the number of prestigious videos by evaluating a video as "viewed" after three seconds, even if the user scrolled immediately afterwards. In September, the group had admitted to have exaggerated the assumption of video seasons.

In parallel, Facebook is developing its daughter apps and offers the possibility of shopping at Instagram. All this costs money - and this is why Wehner warns against rising investment costs.

In the long run, however, according to analysts estimates, Instagram alone could generate sales of five billion dollars. This provides opportunities for further Facebook growth.