Facebook's fourth-quarter results showed little signs of a slowdown, with revenues up 30 percent year-on-year to USD 16.91 billion. The company's net profit soared 61 percent to USD 6.88 billion, helped by a sharp fall in its tax bill. Operating profit rose a slower 6 percent to USD 7.82 billion, and the margin fell to 46 percent from 57 percent a year ago.
The company ended 2018 with 1.52 billion average daily users, up 9 percent from a year earlier and 28 million more than in Q3. Monthly active users were also up 9 percent and by 49 million from Q3, to 2.32 billion at year-end.
After two quarters of decline, daily users in Europe were growing again and back to the same level as Q1. Facebook also grew daily users in North America, Asia-Pacific and the Rest of the World on a quarterly basis. Average revenue per user showed a strong increase of 16 percent year-on-year to USD 7.37.
In addition, the company estimates that around 2.7 billion people use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger (its 'Family' of services) each month, and more than 2 billion people use at least one of the services every day.
Facebook's headcount grew by 42 percent over the year, to 35,587, and the company spent USD 13.92 billion on capital expenditure in the year, more than double the 2017 figure. Its cash position totaled USD 41.11 billion at the end of December.
