Facebook again beat investor expectations for quarterly earnings, but this time only barely, and the social network slightly missed its revenue target.
The company announced earnings — adjusted EPS — of 42 cents a share, beating the expected 40 cents to extend its streak to 12 consecutive quarters of surpassing Wall Street expectations. Revenue for the quarter was $3.54 billion, $20 million below the expected number. Revenue was up 42% from the $2.5 billion Facebook pulled in the first quarter last year.
It was the first time since April 2012 that the company fell short of revenue expectations, an outcome that can be blamed on the strength of the U.S. dollar. More than 50% of Facebook revenue comes from overseas, so a strong dollar tends to hurt Facebook totals. The company said discounting foreign exchange rates, revenue would have been up another $190 million or 7 percentage points in the quarter.
Ad revenue was $3.32 billion, up 46% from last year. Continuing an impressive mobile surge, 73% of ad revenue came from mobile advertising. That’s up from 59% a year ago, and 69% in the fourth quarter of 2014.
On the user front, Facebook reported that it now has 1.44 billion monthly active users, an increase of 13% year over year and up 3.5% over the 1.39 billion from last quarter. The network now claims 936 million daily active users (up 17% YoY), 798 million daily active users on mobile (up 31%) and 1.25 billion mobile monthly active users (up 24%).
“This was a strong start to the year,” founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a release. “We continue to focus on serving our community and connecting the world.”
You can read the full release here. Facebook executives will hold a call with investors today at 2 p.m. PT, which can be streamed here.
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