Facebook's 2017 reports reveals unusual decline in usage
Facebook's Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called 2017 a strong year but "also a hard one". The social network reported better than expected results despite the changes it made, following increased scrutiny of its ad business' role in political campaigns and broader social impact. Zuckerberg said the tweaks would help Facebook in the long-term.
Revenue soared 47% last year to more than $40bn (£28.2bn), while profits jumped 56% to nearly $16bn. The gains came despite an unexpected $2.3bn tax payment under the new US tax law, which included a one-off tax on overseas profits. But Mr Zuckerberg said the firm takes "very seriously" ongoing debate about the utility of social media sites and wants to ensure time spent on the network is "more meaningful," saying "That's what people want."
Facebook, in January, said it would change how its News Feed works, to prioritise posts from friends and family to boost interaction between users, while reducing the prominence of content from businesses, media and other companies. Mr Zuckerberg said the actions, which include showing fewer viral videos, have reduced time spent on Facebook by about 5% or roughly 50 million hours a day.
Facebook said its user growth also cooled slightly from its last quarterly update. The firm reported an average of 1.4 billion daily active users and about 2.13 billion monthly active users in December. Those figures were 14% higher than in December 2016, but had increased 16% year-on-year in September.
The number of daily users shrank by about 700,000 to 184 million in the US and Canada, a region responsible for large portion of ad revenue, compared with the previous quarter.
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