Facebook Q1 Profit Tops Wall Street

(RTTNews) - Facebook Inc. (FB) Wednesday reported a first-quarter profit that trumped Wall Street estimates, driven largely by higher-than expected revenue growth reflecting increase in ad revenues. Shares were up 5 percent in extended trading session.

Menlo Park, California-based Facebook's first-quarter profit dropped to $2.43 billion or $0.85 per share from $4.99 billion or $1.69 per share last year.

Facebook said it took a charge of $3.0 billion in the quarter in connection with the inquiry of the FTC into the company's platform and user data practices. The company estimates the range of loss in the matter to be $3.0 billion to $5.0 billion.

On an adjusted basis, earnings for the quarter were $1.89 per share. On average, 39 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $1.63 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter surged 26 percent to $15.08 billion from $11.97 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $14.97 billion for the quarter.

Daily active users rose 8 percent to 1.56 billion on average for March 2019, while monthly active users also increased 8 percent to 2.38 billion.

Mobile advertising revenues continue to be dominant contributor to ad revenues as it represented 93 percent of advertising revenue for the quarter, up from 91 percent last year. Total advertising revenues surged 26 percent to $14.91 billion.

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

"We had a good quarter and our business and community continue to grow," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "We are focused on building out our privacy-focused vision for the future of social networking, and working collaboratively to address important issues around the internet."

FB closed Wednesday's trading at $182.58, down $1.20 or 0.65%, on the Nasdaq. The stock, however, gained $8.67 or 4.75% in the after-hours trading.