Facebook Inc on Wednesday reported a huge quarterly profit jump fueled by strong growth in revenues and its global user base, powering shares higher for the top social network.
Net profit leapt 186 percent from a year earlier to US$2.05 billion in the second quarter, as Facebook blew past most analyst forecasts.
With its global base of monthly active users growing to 1.7 billion, Facebook saw a 59 percent jump in total revenues to US$6.4 billion, mostly from online advertising.
Facebook shares jumped 6.3 percent in after-hours trade on the stronger-than-expected results.
“Our business is growing at a healthy rate,” Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told a conference call, adding that the company has strategic plans for the next five and 10 years. “Our results show our progress in our goal of making the world more open and connected.”
Zuckerberg said that a key part of Facebook’s strategy was using video, which he said was “at the heart of all our apps and services.”
Facebook used video to boost engagement and has drawn considerable interest in its Facebook Live platform that allows any user to stream live video.
Facebook has been dominating the social media space as well as related online advertising as it seeks to diversify into areas such as messaging, virtual reality and other fields.
The research firm eMarketer estimates Facebook is taking in two-thirds of social media ad revenues, trouncing rivals such as Twitter Inc, which this week reported disappointing results.
The number of monthly active users, a key metric for social networks, grew 15 percent from a year earlier, Facebook said.
Almost all of Facebook’s revenue, US$6.2 billion, came from advertising, and 84 percent of ad revenues came from messages delivered to mobile devices.
Facebook said it had more than 1 billion daily active users on mobile at the end of the quarter on June 30, up 22 percent from a year earlier. Monthly active users on mobile grew 20 percent to 1.57 billion.
Zuckerberg said he sees “one of the biggest opportunities” for growth in developing countries, where high-speed Internet is not widely available.
He said that Facebook is working to expand Internet access around the world through a variety of initiatives, including its drone project aimed at bringing online access to under-served areas.
Separately, a judge in Brazil on Wednesday slapped a US$11.6 million fine on the local Facebook branch over the company’s refusal to surrender data from its WhatsApp messenger program to a police investigation.
The order came from a judge in the northern state of Amazonas, saying Facebook was failing to meet its legal obligations.
Facebook Brasil has “shown tremendous disregard for Brazilian institutions,” prosecutors added.
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