Facebook recorded strong Q1 surprising investors

Facebook had another strong quarter, beating estimates to start 2017. Revenue in the first quarter climbed 49% to $8 billion, which was significantly higher than most analysts expected, and net income was $3 billion or $1.04 per share, compared with consensus estimates of just 87 cents.

It earned that from 1.94 billion users, up from 1.86 billion last quarter, growing at a faster 4.3% compared to 3.91% last quarter.
Facebook said in its last quarterly update that it expects to see its advertising growth rate "come down meaningfully" in 2017 as it stops adding more advertising to the news feed.
Over the past few years, the social network has been able to boost revenue by increasing what it calls the "ad load," or the proportion of ads in a user's feed. But the company said it is reaching the upper limits of what it can put in the feed without seeing a backlash.

Shares in Facebook, which have risen 30% so far this year to hit a new record hit of $153.60 on Wednesday, declined 1.7 per cent in after hours trading in New York.

The company told investors that “Facebook is no longer reporting non-GAAP expenses, income, tax rate, and earnings per share (EPS).” That means it will be more prominently disclosing stock-based compensation in its expenses, which is important since tech companies like Facebook pay employees lots of stock that vests over time to keep them from leaving.

During the earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg gave an overview of Facebook’s work on its new mission to “build community” that the CEO described in his humanitarian manifesto in February. Progress includes getting people to join community groups, launching Community Help for organizing disaster and crisis relief, and launching Townhall to connect people to their elected representatives.
On Wednesday he announced that the company would hire 3,000 moderators who will review content, to add to the 4,500 or so that are currently doing the job.