Business

Facebook quarterly earnings up 38%

11:40 am on 2 May 2013

Facebook has increased its earnings for the first three months of the year by 38%, to nearly $US1.5 billion.

Advertising revenue was up 43% to $US1.25 billion, of which 30% came from mobile advertising.

Net profit rose to $US219 million from $US205 million a year earlier.

The social network site has 1.1 billion users, but has struggled to make money from them since floating on the stock market in May 2012.

The BBC reports monthly active users were up 23% year-on-year to 1.11 billion. That included 751 million mobile users, a rise of 54% on the year.

"We've made a lot of progress in the first few months of the year," said founder Mark Zuckerberg.