Zuckerberg called the stock performance these past few months “disappointing”, and admitted that the drop in the stock price didn’t particularly help employee morale at the company. He did note, however, that morale wasn’t as bad as people might think, and that Facebook takes huge steps to reward its employees. Interestingly, Zuckerberg also said he enjoys being an underdog in the eyes of Wall Street, and stated, “The first half of the year was a little bit slow on products, but the next nine months I think there will be a lot of exciting stuff.”
Shares of Facebook were up 3.5% in after-hours trading following the speech. He looked comfortable as he answered questions, and for the first time he came out and said that Facebook does care about its shareholders. The highlight of his speech was his steadfast focus on the mobile space. He said the word mobile 34 times in a 32 minute speech. Zuckerberg said he expects advertising revenue to regain momentum, and that he ultimately expects mobile ads to generate higher revenue than desktop ads. As Facebook traffic occurs more and more on mobile devices, generating revenue in the mobile space will be key to progressing the stock price.
Finally, Zuckerberg pointed out that Facebook was not interested in building a smartphone, which has been a recurring rumor over the last year.
In his eyes, the future of the company remains bright, and time will tell if he can answer his skeptics and reverse the downtrend in the stock price.
Brandon Kieltyka is currently an undergraduate studying Finance at Daytona State College.
Twitter: @kieltyka05