Facebook reports $4.7 billion profit, 2.07 billion monthly users in Q3

San Francisco: With 1.37 billion daily active users and 2.07 billion monthly active users, Facebook again topped expectations when it reported 79 per cent increase in its quarterly profit and nearly 50 per cent rise in revenues in the third quarter.

With apparently no influence of the ongoing hearing regarding its role in Russia meddling, Facebook late on Wednesday published its financial results for the quarter that ended on September 30, reporting that its profitability hit $4.7 billion mark and earned $10.3 billion in revenue compared to an estimate of $9.84 billion.

"Our business is doing well," company CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. "But none of that matters if our services are used in ways that don`t bring people closer together. 

"We are serious about preventing abuse on our platforms. We are investing so much in security that it will impact our profitability. Protecting our community is more important than maximising our profits," he said.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 88 per cent of advertising revenue for the third quarter of 2017, up from approximately 84 per cent of advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2016.

The average revenue per daily active user reached $7.51 compared to $5.95 a year ago showing a 26 per cent increase.

That is due to a 16 per cent growth in its daily active users over the year and 3.8 per cent increase quarter-over-quarter touching 1.37 billion mark.

Facebook now has 2.07 billion monthly active users -- an increase of 16 per cent year-over-year. The growth is 3.19 per cent compared to last quarter`s 2.006 billion and it grew at 3.4 per cent. 

According to Tech Crunch, Facebook`s share price closed at $182.66 prior to the earnings announcement and climbed 1.28 per cent in after-hours trading. 

Facebook CFO David Wehner said Facebook will boost its expenses 45-60 per cent in 2018 in order to fund security efforts following the Russian intrusion as well as in furthering original video content, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).

The company said it would hire 10,000 people to monitor content and ads, though some will be contractors. It plans to double its security engineering work force.

As of September 30, the headcount at Facebook was 23,165 -- an increase of 47 per cent year-over-year.

Zuckerberg also said that Instagram Stories and WhatsApp Status both now have 300 million daily active users -- up from 250 million in June (Instagram) and July (WhatsApp).