Facebook’s Net Income declines due to increase in expenses

At present, about three-quarters of Facebook's advertising revenue comes from mobile ads, as a lot of users access the social network on smartphones and other handheld devices.

Facebook has been coming out with its own stand-alone mobile apps to capture more of the time people spend on phones. Though, leaving aside Facebook's Messenger app, its home-grown efforts have had limited success.

Facebook has bought the popular photo-sharing app Instagram and the messaging service WhatsApp.

Yesterday, the company had introduced 'Hello', which is a voice-calling app designed for Android phones. In essence, it's meant for replacing the voice dialer on your phone.

But as Facebook has failed in taking over the home screen with its Home app for Android, there are chances that users may not be very interested in replacing existing smartphone tools with Facebook-branded versions.

Facebook finance chief David Wehner said that mobile is one of the main key drivers of the company's growth. He has called Creative Labs an experimental platform for launching the apps and said Facebook will keep on experimenting.

He mentioned that presently the money-making focus is on Facebook itself and, slowly, it will be on popular, established apps such as Instagram.

In the last quarter, 69% of the total advertising revenue was represented by mobile, and the percentage has shown steady growth since Facebook has started showing mobile ads in 2012.

In the January-March quarter, the company reported adjusted earnings of 42 cents per share, which was higher than the 41 cents per share that analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

Revenue has showed a 46% increase to USD 3.54 billion, from USD 2.5 billion a year ago. But, the analysts were expecting USD 3.56 billion.

Net income of Facebook has declined as its expenses have grown by 83% from a year earlier. The company has earned USD 512 million, or 18 cents per share, which is 20% down from USD 642 million, or 25 cents per share.