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- Facebook announced its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday and beat Wall Street's expectations on revenue growth and monthly active users.
- However, revenue growth is set to slow this year as advertising spend moves from Facebook's Newsfeed to Stories.
- Facebook also expects to be fined a record $3-5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission after several data-privacy scandals.
- Most analysts raised their price targets for Mark Zuckerberg's company, citing its strong growth potential.
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Facebook's first-quarter earnings on Wednesday beat Wall Street's expectations on revenue growth and monthly active users.
However, Facebook warned revenue growth would slow this year as advertising spend moves from Facebook's Newsfeed to Stories. It also set aside $3 billion in anticipation of a record-breaking fine from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after a string of data-privacy scandals.
Revenue rose 26% to $15.08 billion ($14.97 billion expected). Monthly active users rose to 2.38 billion (2.37 billion expected). Earnings per share (GAAP) were $0.85 ($1.62 expected), although Facebook said it would have been $1.89 if it hadn't set aside funds for the FTC fine. Advertising revenue was $14.91 billion versus a consensus forecast of $14.78 billion.
Here's what Wall Street analysts said about the earnings.
