Facebook Is Growing Ad Revenue More Than 2 Times Faster Than Google

Investors are clearly not satisfied with Facebook Inc FB's third-quarter earnings report and subsequent conference call based on the stock's 5 percent decline ahead of Thursday's market open.

Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research presented the case against owning Facebook's stock after the company's third-quarter earnings report, but Victor Anthony of Axiom offered the other side of the trade.

In a research report on Thursday, Anthony stated that Facebook reported a "strong" third quarter that exceeded his estimates, while the platform's user growth remains "solid" and management lowered its expense guidance for 2016.

Anthony continued that while Facebook's management guided for 2017 to be an aggressive investment year and ad revenue growth will slow meaningfully, this is a scenario that has played out before.

Anthony expanded that Facebook's revenue growth commentary is in fact already reflected in the Street's consensus estimates, which are already calling for an 18 to 20 percent ad growth deceleration in 2017.

Moreover, Facebook's expense guide for 2017 is similar to what happened in the third quarter of 2014 when the company guided for 2015's non-GAAP expense growth to be between 50 and 70 percent but ended up being around 50 percent. The analyst believes this will play out again and is modeling a 53 percent expense growth in 2017.

"Not withstanding the fact that past investments have resulted in FB building a robust platform that should surpass two billion users next year," the analyst emphasized.

Buy On The Pullback

Anthony further stated that Facebook's stock is trading at around 14x his 2017 EBITDA estimate, which is is three multiple turns above Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL, but Facebook will be growing its ad revenues more than two times faster in 2017.

Bottom line, the analyst is encouraging investors to use the pullback in Facebook's stock to add to positions, as the "platform remains fundamentally strong."

Shares of Facebook remain Buy rated with an unchanged $160 price target.