Facebook posted stronger-than-expected results for its first quarter, helped by a growing number of users and higher advertising revenue, especially on mobile devices.
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The company reported adjusted first-quarter earnings of 77 cents USA per share on revenue of about $5.38 billion U.S.
Meanwhile, mobile daily active users have risen by 24 per cent to 989 million on average. The social network company proposed a new class of stock, which will be known as C shares.
The 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders is due to be held on June 20, 2016, and at this meeting Facebook stockholders will be given the opportunity to vote on the proposal.
Advertising revenue also grew almost 60% year over year to $5.2 billion, with mobile advertising revenue representing about 82% of all advertising revenue for the quarter.
Facebook was a dorm room idea, and with the proper nurturing from Mark Zuckerberg, it turned into the world’s biggest social network.
Over the past decade or so, several tech companies have adopted two classes of stock with the intent of allowing founders to cement their voting power. This is an increase of 9 percent from a similar period in the previous year.
In all, it was quite a strong earnings report from Facebook, as the company delivered impressive performance in key areas such as users, revenue, and profits.
The results showed success attracting advertisers and the company was able to expand its operating profit margin to 55 percent from 52 percent a year earlier, in the process. As long as the company continues producing this kind of growth, investors in Facebook will probably sleep well at night knowing that Zuckerberg is holding the reins.
Facebook recently announced its upbeat quarterly numbers. There are now 1.65 billion people using Facebook each month, compared to 1.59 billion at the end of a year ago.
There is no indication that he has any plans to leave the company early, since this new type of stocks will enable him to maintain “founder control” of the firm even if his quantity of shares goes down.
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The new proposal will give Zuckerberg the final say over decisions, and comes alongside Facebook posting a trebling of earnings on Wednesday – $1.51 billion (£1billion) up from $512 million year on year – which hurtled its stock upwards.
