Facebook profits up 11 per cent on user, advertising growth
Los Angeles (dpa) - Facebook reported strong growth in earnings for the third quarter Wednesday, with net profits up about 11 per cent year-on-year to 896 million dollars.
"We had a good quarter and got a lot done," founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said.
The world's largest social network continued to grow in the quarter that ended September 30, boosting advertising revenue with user traffic.
Facebook said it had 1.55 billion monthly active users, including more than 1 billion who logged on every day - an increase of 17 per cent from the same period in 2014.
Advertising generates more than 90 per cent of earnings for the company, based in the Menlo Park, California, and in the third quarter mobile's share of that take grew to 78 per cent from 66 per cent the year before. Nearly nine out of 10 daily users logged in over smartphones.
The company invested 780 million dollars in the third quarter in projects to bring billions more users online in the developing world and in work on the Oculus Rift virtual reality glasses.
Zuckerberg said one of Facebook's long-term goals is to "connect the entire world."
Investors gave the earnings report a thumbs-up, with Facebook shares rising more than 2 per cent in after-hours trading.
