Facebook's network keeps expanding, Zuckerberg's mobile bet pays off

Facebook is well on its way to building another Facebook.
The world's largest social network has been steadily growing its audience outside its namesake website and mobile app, encouraging people to connect using its Instagram photo sharing network, Messenger communicator app and WhatsApp text message replacement service.
The result: Facebook said last month it counts more than more than 300 million who use Instagram each month and 800 million who use WhatsApp. Together, that's close to the 1.44 billion people Facebook says logged into its service as of March 31, including the 600 million people who use Messenger.
For Facebook, the move to expand past its core social network stems from its aim to become the go-to service of mobile app developers and users. The company has promised to be, well, more friendly -- offering consistent and less buggy software and new technology for uploading videos, photos and other items more easily into Facebook.
But Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, wants the company to focus even more on mobile devices. He's offered developers new ways to share videos and photos through the Messenger app, expanded advertising for Instagram, and created a team of experts called "Creative Shop" to help companies more effectively create photos and videos targeted at users around the globe.
"The CEO and management team have made little secret of the fact that they want to be a mobile-first business," said Ken Odeluga, an analyst at City Index. He added Zuckerberg has set an unofficial target for these mobile apps to hit 1 billion users, at which point the company trains its advertising and monetization efforts on them.
Facebook's focus on mobile comes through even in its financial filings, Odeluga said, which now offer many comparable data points about its mobile device business. "They've realized everything on the Internet will be mobile, essentially."
The company has also begun offering more data to advertisers, both to help them understand what users are saying about companies and products and to help them test how effectively their ads encourage customers to buy things from stores.
Advertisers appear to be following Team Zuckerberg. Of Facebook's $3.32 billion in revenue derived from advertising for its first quarter, ended March 31, the company said that 73 percent came from ads shown on mobile devices. That figure was 59 percent a year ago, Facebook said.
In addition, more than 85 percent of the people who log into Facebook's service each day do so from a mobile device.
"This was a strong start to the year," said Zuckerberg, in a statement.

By the numbers

For its first quarter, Facebook said its overall revenue hit $3.54 billion, up more than 41 percent from the same time a year ago and slightly below the $3.55 billion expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. But foreign exchange rates, and particularly the strong US dollar, put a drag on its business, Facebook said. Profit plummeted to $512 million, down more than 20 percent from the same time a year ago, mostly due to higher operating expenses that Facebook had warned investors were coming.
Wall Street was unfazed, barely moving the company's shares off their closing price of $84.63. Facebook's stock has risen 8.5 percent so far this year.
After adjustments for items like stock-based compensation, Facebook said it earned 42 cents per share, above the 40 cents per share analysts had been expecting.