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Facebook’s massive growth in users means massive growth in profits

Shares of Facebook stock, which have risen 33 percent during the past year, spiked up 9.5 percent to $119.28 in after-hours trading on April 27.

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First quarter reports from Facebook puts the number of users on the social network at 1.65 billion with an average stay of 15 minutes per user.

Quarterly revenue stood at $5.38 billion, with advertising revenue jumping 57 percent to $5.20 billion.

Facebook revenues for the first quarter were $5.3 billion, up 52% from a year ago.

The California-based social networking firm on Wednesday also proposed a new class of stock, known as C shares, in an initiative meant to allow CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to maintain control of the company.

Stretch went on to say that Facebook’s directors believe that a “large part” of the company’s success has come from Zuckerberg and that he should continue to be in charge. Mobile ad revenue accounted for around 82% of advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2016, up from 73% of ad revenue in the first quarter of 2015.

Most of Facebook’s revenue comes from North America and Europe with about only 24% ($1.3 billion) coming from Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world.

Facebook’s share price increased for more than 8 percent moments after the earnings were announced.

In separate news, Facebook announced a three-for-one stock split to create a new class of non-voting shares in a filing Wednesday.

Facebook’s numbers are in stark contrast to those of Twitter, according to TechCrunch, Twitter added 5 million users this quarter; Facebook added 12 times that many.

Mobile MAUs – Mobile MAUs were 1.51 billion as of March 31, 2016, an increase of 21% year-over-year.

“This will become fairly common for strong founder CEOs that have established a long tenure of performance”, Ryan Jacob, manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which oversees $40 million including Facebook shares, said.

If the proposal is approved, shareholders will receive two non-voting shares for each single share they hold.

Earlier this year, Facebook also rolled out new “Reactions” that people can use when they want to do more than just “like” a post, which the company hopes will also increase people’s engagement.

Net income tripled to $1.5bn in Q1, compared to $512m in the year-ago period.

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Investors said they were not concerned that Zuckerberg would have increasing control because of the company consistent ability to grow and exceed expectations.

Expectations are high for Facebook's first-quarter earnings