Facebook has warned its profitability will suffer as it invests more in security on its platforms. However, its latest quarterly results showed little sign of a slowdown. Revenues in the third quarter rose 47 percent from a year earlier to USD 10.33 billion, and net profit was up 79 percent to USD 4.71 billion.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the "community continues to grow and our business is doing well", "but none of that matters if our services are used in ways that don't bring people closer together". In order to prevent abuse on the company's platforms, Facebook will be "investing so much in security that it will impact our
profitability. Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits", Zuckerberg said.
Colin Stretch, general counsel at Facebook, said a day earlier at a hearing in the US Congress that Facebook plans to double staff working on sensitive security and community issues to 20,000 by the end of next year, according to US media reports. The Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing was related to the role of Facebook and other social media in Russian interference in the 2016 elections in the US.
Ads, users still growing
Margins were still strong in the latest quarter, with the operating margin at 50 percent versus 44 percent a year ago and 47 percent in Q2 this year. The company also reduced its effective tax rate to 10 percent from 17 percent a year ago.
The growth was driven by more users on the social network, as well as more advertising. Daily active users on Facebook increased 16 percent year-on-year to 1.37 billion on average for September, and monthly active users rose by the same percentage to 2.07 billion.
Advertising accounted for over 98 percent of Facebook's total revenues, and mobile increased to 88 percent of advertising revenue from 84 percent a year ago.
