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Facebook Announces Jump in Income, Users Base Touches 1.86 Billion | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Facebook’s profits more than doubled in the final quarter of 2016, as the social networking service giant now enjoys a user base of over a billion users.

The social media platform saw its audience grow and head towards a stunning two billion mark.People using the Facebook each month increased 17 percent to 1.86 billion.

Even though it hasn’t been a breeze for the social media pioneer, the big jump in income announced Wednesday is now a statistical reality. Controversy has been working against Facebook saying that it plays a chief role in spreading fake news, and a Texas jury ordered the company to pay $500 million to a software firm that claims its virtual reality technology was stolen.

The lawsuit claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and his colleagues developed the virtual reality gear using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, has described virtual reality as one of the company’s important long-range investments.

In earnings that beat most forecasts, Facebook said it made a net profit of $3.7 billion on revenue of $8.6 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with profit of $1.6 billion on $5.6 billion in revenue in the same period a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the ranks of people logging into the world’s leading social network site from mobile devices each month grew to 1.74 billion, a 21 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, reported AFP.

Facebook shares jumped more than two percent in after-market trades, returning to 15 cents above the closing price of $133.23 after chief financial officer David Wehner told analysts that the social network has run out of spare room for ads and plans to invest “aggressively.”

Income from ads on mobile devices accounted for about 84 percent of Facebook’s overall advertising revenue in the final quarter of last year.

Facebook saw strong growth in Asia, with India being a hot market. The social network site still hopes to get into China, where the service is banned.

Company priorities include data centers, virtual reality, search and artificial intelligence.