Facebook beats the Street on profits, falls short on user growth

Facebook topped Wall Street profit estimates on Tuesday but fell short of targets for monthly user and revenue growth.

Facebook's revenue of $13.73bn, up 33% year-on-year came in just below the $13.78bn predicted by analysts, while the social media giant's 9% improved quarterly profit of $5.14bn, or $1.76 per share, came in well above the average per-share estimate of $1.48.

Total expenses for the three months ended 30 September rocketed 53% to $7.95bn as Facebook's operating margin fell just 2 points to 42%.

Although Facebook said user growth had slowed, the firm was confident the likes of Instagram and WhatsApp were capable of picking up some of the slack moving forward.

However, Facebook revealed that 2.6bn users had interacted with at least one of its apps every month throughout the quarter, up from the 2.5bn reported last quarter.

Monthly and daily users of the main Facebook app compared with a year ago were up 10% to 2.27bn.

As of 0030 BST, Facebook shares had collected 3.13% in after-hours trading to $150.80 each.