After the market close on Wednesday, Facebook (NASDAQ:$FB) will release its second quarter earnings. As we approach the report, Wall Street expects Facebook to post a higher quarterly profit, and it will be driven by increasing sales of video and display ads.

Based on a sample size of 35 analysts who rate its stock, Facebook is forecasted to report a second quarter profit of $1.13 per share. This is significant, as it is up from 97 cents per share in 2016, according to Thomson Reuters estimates.

Additionally, revenue is thought to increase to $9.2 billion, which is a jump of 43% year-over-year.

If the California-based company were to reach these numbers, its revenue growth for the period will be twice that of Alphabet unit Google (NASDAQ:$GOOGL), who is its main rival in the market for online advertising.

Facebook is Playing Catch-Up

As Facebook tries to catch up to YouTube, the company is entering into partnerships with entertainment and media companies in order to produce its own original video content. However, as one might see on the report, this push has not been without challenges – and some could prove to be expensive.

Wall Street analysts have been lowering their full year, 2017 earnings estimates for Facebook, as they expect higher costs for producing video content and creating more data centers.

Meanwhile, the social network behemoth has already warned analysts that some expenses will grow at a faster rate than revenue:

“We continue to expect that full-year 2017 capital expenditures will be in the range of $7 billion to $7.5 billion, which is up over 50% compared to last year,” said CFO David Wehner. 

The Takeaway:

Even though some traders believe Facebook could drop in earnings, others picture the opposite. The important thing to keep in mind today is that Facebook shares are up 41% in 2017, which is twice the gain of the broader market for technology shares, according to the Nasdaq Composite Index.

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