Facebook’s User Growth Helped Q1 Earnings To Beat Expectations

Trees don’t grow to the sky, but Facebook doesn’t seem to know that truism based on the strong results it just disclosed in its Q1 report.

The company generated net income of $3.06 billion, up 76.6% vs the period last year, on revenues of $8.03 billion, up 49.2%. The latter number was well above the $7.83 billion that analysts expected.

Earnings came in at $1.04 a share. Analysts had projected $1.12 based on an adjusted calculation that Facebook no longer reports.

Indeed, the company says that it will no longer report expenses, income, tax rate and earnings per share that don’t conform to what are known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Most companies also offer what are known as non-GAAP numbers with adjustments that usually show their results in a more favorable light.

Monthly active users, at 1.94 billion, exceeded the Street’s expectation for 1.91 billion.

“We had a good start to 2017,”  CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. “We’re continuing to build tools to support a strong global community.”

Ad sales — the dominant revenue source — were up 51% to $7.86 billion. Mobile accounted for 85% of ad sales, up from 82% a year ago.

Despite the earnings beat, Facebook shares fell 1.8% in post market trading. That may reflect profit taking after the stock touched an all time high of $153.60 yesterday.