What crisis? Facebook flies as it rakes in £100m a day
FACEBOOK shares climbed more than 5pc after the market closed last night as it reported sales of £8.5bn for the start of 2018.
It represented a revenue boost of nearly 50pc at the tech giant – which is now raking in £96m a day – for the three months to the end of March. Profits rose 63pc to nearly £3.6bn. , Facebook also said the number of people logging on each day rose 13pc to 2.2bn.
It comes as the social network is trying to recover from weeks of bad publicity caused by a data scandal. Last month it was accused of allowing British firm Cambridge Analytica to hoover up information on 87m people. This was then allegedly used to target voters in the US presidential election.
It sparked outrage and led to a series of apologies to users and politicians from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder. Last night the 33-year-old, estimated to be worth £46bn, said: ‘Despite facing important challenges, our community and business are off to a strong start in 2018. We are taking a broader view of our responsibility and investing to make sure our services are used for good. But we also need to keep building new tools to help people connect, strengthen our communities and bring the world closer together.’
Last night’s figures smashed Wall Street’s expectations and shares in the company, which have fallen 9.5pc this year, were up 5.5pc to $168.50 after the bell.
There was speculation Facebook’s advertising revenues could be hit amid outrage over its handling of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which caused some advertisers to boycott it. However reports about the issue only surfaced in the final two weeks of the period covered by last night’s earnings report.
The company revealed it boosted its headcount by nearly 50pc, to 27,700, as well. It is hiring more staff to help spot extremist and abusive content.
By contrast, hours earlier, shares in rival social network Twitter slid after it warned revenues would fall and costs go up because of its work to tackle hate speech and abuse.