Facebook's ad business brisk

Facebook's net profit in the first three months of this year was 58 percent higher from the same quarter a year ago, totaling $219 million (168 million euros), the US social media giant said in a release Wednesday.

Revenue in the quarter increased to $1.46 billion from $1.06 billion - up 43 percent. Both profit and revenue was above analysts' expectations.

"We've made a lot of progress in the first few months of the year," Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in the release, pointing to a number of "exciting" new products which had contributed to strong growth and engagement across the Facebook community.

Investors had been worried about Facebook's ability to grow mobile revenue as more and more people are accessing the social network with advertising-unfriendly smartphones and tablet computers.

However, the technology firm's change to specially-designed mobile advertisements has boosted revenue in this section 23 percent over the year, from $306 million in the first quarter of 2012 to $375 million now. Meanwhile, advertisements on mobile devices make up 30 percent of Facebook's total ad revenue.

In addition, the social network giant, based in Menlo Park, California, said its monthly active users jumped 23 percent from a year ago to a total of 1.1 billion people.

uhe/dr (AP, AFP, dpa)