Facebook’s financial performance in the first quarter was a little mixed, with revenues just shy of meeting analyst expectations.
In after hours trading, investors reacted negatively, sending shares of the social media giant down by more than 2 percent to $82.76 a share.
Facebook said first-quarter revenue totaled $3.54 billion, falling short of analyst expectations, which were predicting sales of $3.56 billion. Excluding some expenses, Facebook earned a profit of 42 cents a share, which beat analyst expectations of 40 cents.
Even though profits beat analyst expectations, costs are weighing down the company. Expenses jumped 83 percent in the first quarter to $2.61 billion. As a result net income for the quarter totaled $512 million, down from $642 million a year earlier.
Revenue from advertising, which accounts for more than 90 percent of Facebook’s sales, totaled $3.32 billion, a 46 percent increase over the same quarter last year.
In a statement, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO said: “This was a strong start to the year.”
Revenues from mobile advertising performed well in the first quarter, representing about 73 percent of overall advertising revenue, up from 59 percent in the year ago period.
Mobile revenues continue to be important to watch since that’s where most of the company’s growth is coming from. Facebook said daily users coming from mobile averaged 798 million in March, a 31 percent year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, daily active users for Facebook increased more modestly, totaling 936 million in March, a 17 percent increase year-over-year.
Facebook is hosting a conference call today at 2 p.m. to discuss results in more detail.
