But the hot streak may not last much longer, if warnings from prior quarters are any indication.
Increasing ad load — the number of ads on the website — has been one of three main factors of Facebook’s growth, along with user growth and increasing time spent on the platform, Wehner said in November. But ad load could “come down meaningfully” after mid-2017, Wehner said at that time.
And accusations of promoting fake news and extreme videos have weighed on the company.
Zuckerberg vowed on Wednesday ahead of earnings to hire thousands of workers over the next year to monitor sensitive content, after gruesome and violent acts have made headlines after being streamed on Facebook Live.
Costs rose 40 percent to about $4.71 billion, up from just $3.37 billion a year ago, as headcount ballooned 38 percent from a year ago.
Facebook also has some prominent new competition from a year ago: Snap, which went public this spring. The company has unleashed a string of rival tools to compete with Snap’s ad dollars.
New research released on Wednesday by App Annie shows that many Snap users — 35 percent — cannot be reached on Facebook on any given day. The figures are even higher —46 percent and 58 percent, respectively — for Facebook’s Instagram and Messenger.
Still, more Facebook users are accessing the site on mobile than last year. Eighty-five percent of ad revenue for the first quarter was mobile, up from 82 percent a year ago, Facebook said. Instagram stories also has 200 million daily active users, and WhatsApp Status has 175 million daily active users, Zuckerberg said.
Then there’s Oculus, Facebook’s virtual reality company that has shuffled its key workers amid scandals. Founder Palmer Luckey has left the company. Oculus is also on the hook for $500 million after losing a key lawsuit.
It’s also been a year since Facebook unveiled an unusual new share structure, which would potentially allow Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to sell some of his shares while still maintaining control of the company.
