Facebook beats expectations with $8.03B revenue in Q1; user base grows to 1.94B

It was another good, if not great quarter for social networking giant Facebook beating Wall Street expectations. The company reported $8.03 billion in revenue and a user base of 1.94 billion for the first quarter of the year.

"We had a good start to 2017," Zuckerberg said in a statement with Wednesday's earnings release. "We're continuing to build tools to support a strong global community."

Facebook had 1.86 billion users last quarter, which means a growth rate of  4.3 percent compared to 3.91 percent last quarter. At this speed, the social network should hit 2 billion total users in Q2. Daily active users reached 1.28 billion, up from 1.23 billion last quarter. The major chunk of this growth came from Asia-Pacific region where Facebook added 43 million users compared to 3 million from the US & Canada market.

Mobile now counts for 85 percent of Facebook’s ad revenue, accounting for $6.7 billion in ad revenue. Facebook earned $3.06 billion in profit in Q1, up 76 percent year-over-year while revenue grew 49 percent year-over-year.

Facebook’s focus on the developing world with apps like the 200 million-user Facebook Lite, recently rolled-out Messenger Lite, and new Instagram offline mode are paying off. Average revenue per user in the Rest Of World region hit $1.27, up 40 percent in a year.

However, Facebook said it is no longer reporting non-GAAP income and earning-per-share. Facebook reported that first-quarter expenses grew 40 percent from the same period a year earlier to $4.71 billion. The company also warned that expenses in 2017 will increase “meaningfully” and that "ad load," the volume of ads the company can show users, will become a less significant revenue growth factor into this year. This message overshadowed first-quarter sales and Facebook shares fell as much as 4.2 percent in after-hours trading.