Facebook Sales Top Estimates, Fueled by Ads

Facebook has been embroiled in one controversy after another, but ad sales are near records and users keep flocking to the social network, according to Bloomberg.

First-quarter revenue rose 49 percent to $11.97 billion, beating the $11.4 billion average analyst projection. In a statement, Facebook said it now has 1.45 billion daily users, matching estimates on this key measure of engagement. Shares surged more than 5 percent in extended trading.

Net income in the first quarter climbed 63 percent to $4.99 billion, or $1.69 a share, topping the $1.35 per share analysts predicted. Capital expenditures reached $2.81 billion in the quarter as Facebook increases its spending on security, video content and new technologies. The company also said it boosted its stock-buyback program by $9 billion.

Facebook has spent the past month explaining, apologizing and tweaking its rules after an app developer passed along personal information on as many as 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, which may have failed to delete it. That crisis, which resulted in a #deleteFacebook campaign and a congressional inquiry for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, hit toward the end of the quarter so its implications may have had little visible impact so far. Still, the company’s persistent growth points to the strength of its digital-ad business, despite growing concerns from advertisers, users and lawmakers in the past year.

The company’s main social network added users in North America, reversing the decline that happened for the first time ever in the fourth quarter. Monthly active users in the U.S. and Canada rose to 241 million, while daily active users climbed to 185 million in the first quarter.

Facebook still holds a dominant position in mobile advertising, alongside Google. That has let the company increase the price of ads. Facebook said mobile made up 91 percent of ad revenue in the recent period, compared with about 85 percent a year earlier. The company also has plenty of properties where it’s starting to make more money beyond the main social network, like the popular chat apps WhatsApp and Messenger and the photo-sharing app Instagram, which is expected to reach a billion users this year.