Facebook has brought in a higher net income than Google’s parent company Alphabet for the first time in history — though this has more to do with the massive US$2.7-billion fine the EU slapped on the latter than anything else.
The company made US$3.8-billion over the last three months, seeing a 71% year-on-year increase, while Google made just over US$3.5-billion.
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The moment isn’t all sunshine and beating Google, though. Facebook has seen a steady decline in its revenue growth over the past year as it runs out of space for ads on its News Feed.
A year ago, it’s year-over-year change was 59%; that number has since dropped to 45%.
Facebook warned last year that it would see the impact of reaching maximum ad capacity in 2017, made especially worse by the decline of desktop use and the removal of sidebar ads.
Facebook pulled in more income in a quarter than Google for the first time in history
To keep ad revenue on the up and up, the company will need to look at growing its userbase and creating more effective ads they can sell at higher prices.
Last month, it boasted two billion monthly users on its flagship platform, and it has since announced 1.32-billion daily active users — up 17% from last year.
WhatsApp also hit a billion daily users, and its Snapchat clone Status now pulls in 250-million daily users, near equal to those on Instagram Stories. In comparison, Snapchat levels out at around 166-million daily users.
Mobile now accounts for 87% of Facebook’s ad revenue, with US$8-billion of the US$9.16-billion coming in from the app and browsers.
Despite the slowing growth, the company has increased its employee base to 20 658, up 43% year-over-year.
