Extraordinary Results: Facebook Revenues Jumped Over 50 Percent, Profit Tripled

Facebook generated revenues of $5.38 billion in the last quarter, 52 percent higher than a year ago, while profit nearly tripled, thanks to strong advertising growth.

According to the business report released on Wednesday, Facebook’s net profit reached $1.51 billion in the first quarter of this year, compared to $512 million in the same quarter last year.

Advertising revenues, which make up the largest portion of Facebook’s income, increased by 56.8 percent to $5.20 billion.

The highest growth was seen in advertising revenues on mobile devices, which now account for about 82 percent of total advertising revenues, up from 73 percent a year ago.

Advertisers are shifting money from television to online and mobile advertising, and Facebook is one of the companies that benefits the most from this, although it faces fierce competition in the mobile video market from Snapchat and YouTube, which also attract billions of visitors daily.

According to the analytics company eMarketer, Facebook’s share of the global digital advertising market, valued at around $186 billion, could reach 12 percent this year.

The largest global social network had 1.65 billion active monthly users worldwide at the end of the last quarter, 15 percent more than a year ago.

More than 1.5 billion of them access the service via smartphones or other mobile devices, which is 20 percent more than a year ago.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says users spend more than 50 minutes daily on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger, which is a significant amount of time considering the millions of apps available to users.

“Facebook is an impressive company and leaves little room for criticism,” says Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Thanks to better-than-expected business results, Facebook’s stock price rose more than 9 percent on Wednesday on Wall Street to a record $118, nearly triple the price at its initial public offering (IPO) four years ago.

Facebook also announced yesterday that it would propose the issuance of a new class of non-voting shares, which would be distributed to existing shareholders as a dividend.

This would allow Zuckerberg to sell his shares without voting rights while retaining control over the company. Zuckerberg recently announced his intention to donate 99 percent of his wealth to charity.

Investors say they are not concerned about Zuckerberg increasing his control, given that Facebook continues to grow faster than expected.

“Honestly, I don’t think anyone is worried about him having more power, considering that since the company went public, he has done everything right,” says Pachter.