Facebook’s Q1 Profit Up 58% As Mobile Ads Surge

Social networking site Facebook reported a 58 per cent year-on-year rise in its first quarter profit to reach $219 million, mainly boosted by increasing mobile advertising revenues.

Total revenue for the period increased to $1.46 billion, up 43 per cent from $1.06 billion in Q1 2012. Meanwhile, mobile advertising revenues amounted to almost $375 million compared to around $306 million a year ago, and accounted for 30 per cent of total advertising revenue for the quarter, the company said.

The site’s monthly active users also rose 23 percent to 1.11 billion, with 751 million users accessing Facebook on mobile devices.

There have been several concerns about Facebook’s ability to generate mobile revenues as more and more users access the site on smartphones. But the company says it is heading in the right direction.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in the first few months of the year,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “We have seen strong growth and engagement across our community and launched several exciting products.”

In the first quarter, the company launched its new Facebook Home software.

“Over the next few months we hope to push this out much more broadly and get it in the hands of a lot more people,” Zuckerberg added.