1 billion people check Facebook only on mobile

Jessica Guynn , USA TODAY7:08 p.m. EDT November 2, 2016

Facebook Increported a 55.8 percent rise in quarterly revenue, beating analysts' estimates, as its mobile-advertising sales soared. USA TODAY

(Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO — For the first time last quarter, Facebook topped one billion "mobile only" monthly active users.

That means more than one billion people checked Facebook only on their mobile devices in the third quarter, yet another milestone from the social-media giant that keeps notching them.

"These are people who only engage with Facebook on mobile now. That number is roughly eight times higher than the number who only use a computer, so there’s been this complete reversal of the trend from a few years ago here in a fairly short period of time," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research.

Four years ago, when Facebook first started reporting mobile-only monthly active users, it had 157 million of them, and about 1 billion monthly active users, Dawson said.

Facebook embarked on a path to become a "mobile first" company, looking to seize on the shift of consumers to mobile devices. Advertisers followed. Mobile ad revenue accounts for 84% of Facebook's total ad revenue.

Nearly 1.8 billion people logged onto Facebook at least once a month and nearly 1.2 billion checked Facebook every day in the third quarter.