Facebook Q1 Profit Surges - Update

(RTTNews) - Facebook Inc. (FB), Wednesday reported a 63 percent surge in the profit for the first quarter, as the social networking giant's ad revenues continues soar, despite the ongoing controversy regarding the misuse of user data.

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook's first-quarter profit surged to $4.99 billion or $1.69 per share from $3.06 billion or $1.04 per share last year. On average, 35 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $1.35 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter surged 49 percent to $11.97 billion from $8.03 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $11.41 billion for the quarter.

Daily active users rose 13 percent to 1.45 billion on average for March, while monthly active users increased 13 percent to 2.20 billion.

Revenues of Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site, continues to surge every quarter as companies and other firms continue to spend heavily to advertise on the social network.

Mobile advertising revenues continue to be dominant contributor to ad revenues as it represented 91 percent of advertising revenue for the quarter, up from 85 percent last year. Total advertising revenues surged 50 percent to $11.80 billion.

"Despite facing important challenges, our community and business are off to a strong start in 2018," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "We are taking a broader view of our responsibility and investing to make sure our services are used for good. But we also need to keep building new tools to help people connect, strengthen our communities, and bring the world closer together."

Facebook recently faced heavy criticism in the wake of revelations that data from 87 million people was accessed by political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which is linked to US President Donald Trump's election campaign, without their permission. The millions of users' "psychographic profiles" were used to manipulate them with ads.

Facebook Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified and apologized before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees early this month.

Total costs and expenses jumped 39 percent to $6.52 billion, as Facebook continues to spend heavily on research and development as well as on marketing.

FB closed Wednesday's trading at $159.69, on the Nasdaq. The stock gained $7.11 or 4.45% in the after-hours trading.