India helped Facebook gain daily users, log record profits

San Francisco: Despite facing intense scrutiny over data privacy, Facebook stock rose 12% after it logged a record revenue of $16.91 billion — up from $12.97 billion in the year-ago period — in the fourth quarter that ended December 31.

The social media giant now has 2.32 billion monthly active users (MAUs) globally — an increase of 9% (year-over-year) — and 1.52 billion daily active users (DAUs), thanks to the growth in emerging markets like India, the company said late Wednesday.

"Full year 2018 revenue grew 37% to $56 billion and we generated over $15 billion of free cash flow.

"Daily active users on Facebook reached 1.52 billion, up 9% compared to 2017, led by growth in India, Indonesia and the Philippines," said Dave Wehner, Facebook's Chief Financial Officer.

Facebook reported $6.88 billion in net income which amounts to $2.38 a share — up from $1.44 a share in the year-ago period. The full year revenue stood at $55.8 billion — up from $40.6 billion in 2017.

"Our community and business continue to grow. We've fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on the biggest social issues, and we're investing more to build new and inspiring ways for people to connect," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 93% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, up from approximately 89% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2017.

"We estimate that around 2.7 billion people now use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger each month, and more than 2 billion people use at least one of our family of services every day on average," said the company that added 1 million daily users in Canada and the US.

Capital expenditures were $4.37 billion and $13.92 billion for the fourth quarter and full year 2018, respectively.