Facebook profit zooms three-fold to $1.5 bn

San Francisco, April 28 

Facebook has reported a powerful surge in profits as its user base continued to climb.

Profit in the first quarter tripled from a year ago to $1.5 billion as revenue jumped to $5.4 billion from $3.5 billion in the same period a year earlier. "We had a great start to the year," said Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg yesterday.

The key metric of monthly active users rose to 1.65 bn, up 15% from a year ago. And those using Facebook daily rose 16% to 1.09 bn, with strong gains in number of people using mobile devices. The report shows Facebook is using its dominant position in social media to boost advertising revenues as it connects more people with new services such as live video.  AFP