In earnings that topped most forecasts, Facebook Inc on Wednesday said it made a net profit of US$3.7 billion on revenue of US$8.6 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with profit of US$1.6 billion on US$5.6 billion in revenue during the same period the previous year.
The company said the number of people using the leading social network monthly increased 17 percent to 1.86 billion.
The ranks of people accessing Facebook from mobile devices each month grew to 1.74 billion, up of 21 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Money taken in from ads on mobile devices accounted for about 84 percent of Facebook’s overall advertising revenue in the final quarter of last year, the company said.
Facebook saw strong growth in Asia, with India being a hot market in the quarter. The social network still hopes to get into China, where the service is not allowed.
“Our mission is to connect everyone in the world and it’s hard to do that over the long term if we don’t find a way to serve the more than billion people who live in China,” Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said while answering questions from analysts on an earnings call.
“But one of the big things that we need to think about here is of course we’re only going to do this in a way that we’re comfortable with over the long term,” he said.
Facebook shares jumped more than 2 percent in after-market trades, returning to US$0.15 above the closing price of US$133.23 after chief financial officer David Wehner reminded analysts that the social network has essentially run out of spare room for ads and plans to invest “aggressively.”
Under pressure to stymie the spread of fake news, Facebook last month modified its system for showing trending topics.
The change was intended to surface topics more quickly, capture a broader range of news and help ensure that trends reflect real world events being covered by multiple news outlets.
Zuckerberg has sought to deflect criticism that Facebook may have been used to fuel the spread of misinformation that influence the outcome of the US presidential race.
“We don’t write the news that you read, but we want to be a place where people can access information and have meaningful conversations,” Zuckerberg said.
Facebook executives expected spending on investment and hiring by the California-based company to leap 50 percent or so from last year.
Company priorities include data centers, virtual reality, search and artificial intelligence (AI).
AI has the potential to help figure out and find videos or other content people might like at Facebook, and to quickly recognize and remove posts that violate community standards, Zuckerberg said.
He also described virtual reality (VR) as a long-range investment and asked investors to be patient.
“We are going to keep making big investments in VR content and I’m excited about what’s coming they 2017, from new games to more immersive educational experiences,” Zuckerberg said.
A Texas jury on Wednesday ordered Facebook and creators of its Oculus Rift to pay US$500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax Media Inc in a lawsuit that claimed the VR technology was stolen.
The lawsuit claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and his colleagues developed the VR gear using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm.
ZeniMax had sought US$4 billion in damages in the case, in which Zuckerberg testified to defend his company.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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