Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) on Wednesday reported third-quarter results that handily beat analysts' earnings estimates and topped revenue forecasts.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said income was $6.09 billion, or $2.12 a share, compared with $5.14 billion, or $1.76 a share, in the year-ago period.
Revenue jumped 29% to $17.65 billion from $13.73 billion a year ago. Analysts had estimated $1.91 a share on revenue of $17.4 billion.
Advertising sales accounted for 98% of total revenue, or $17.38 billion.
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Facebook reported its earning after bell and noted that 2.8 billion regular users across its family of apps — which includes Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebooks core social network — up from the year previous. More than 1.6 billion people visit Facebook on a daily basis.
“We had a good quarter and our community and business continue to grow,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We are focused on making progress on major social issues and building new experiences that improve peoples lives around the world.”
Earlier in the day, Facebook agreed to pay a £500,000 fine in the UK over the Cambridge Analytica scandal hours before the release of its third-quarter earnings report.
The settlement comes after a case brought by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in July 2018, which the social network appealed in November 2018, over the accusation that data was harvested from millions of peoples Facebook profiles without their consent.
