Facebook sees a 59 per cent jump in total revenues to USD 6.4 billion

In an hour’s time, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg received a net profit of USD 3.4 billion on Wednesday. According to Forbes, this occurred due to Facebook’s Q2s earnings being much higher than expected. Consequently, Facebook’s stock naturally rose by 6.5 per cent. Although, Facebook’s this quarter’s earnings were less than Q1s in which the company reportedly bagged $4.2 billion.

However according to reports by Business Insider last year, Mark Zuckerberg gave away approximately 99 per cent of his Facebook shares that year. Zuckerberg addressed this in a letter to his new-born daughter Max last year. 

In it he wrote, ‘’As you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.’’ 

Facebook said Wednesday its profit leapt 186 per cent from a year ago to USD 2 billion, as the world’s biggest social network blasted past most analyst forecasts for the second quarter. With its global base of monthly active users growing to 1.71 billion, Facebook saw a 59 per cent jump in total revenues to USD 6.4 billion, mostly from online advertising.

Facebook shares jumped seven percent in after-hours trade on the stronger-than-expected results. “Our community and business had another good quarter,” said Mark Zuckerberg.

“We’re particularly pleased with our progress in video as we move towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services.” Facebook has been dominating the social media space as well as related online advertising as it seeks to diversify into areas such as messaging, virtual reality and other fields.

The research firm eMarketer estimates that Facebook is taking in two-thirds of social media ad revenues, dominating rivals such as Twitter, which this week reported disappointing results.

The number of monthly active users, a key metric for social networks, grew 15 per cent from a year ago, Facebook said.

(With inputs from PTI)