Investing.com – Shares of Facebook fell sharply in after hours trade on Wednesday as fourth quarter revenue and earnings beat analysts estimates but the time its users spent on the social network platform fell significantly.
The tech giant reported earnings-per-share of $2.21 per share on $12.97 billion in revenue against analysts’ expectations of earnings-per-share of $1.97 per share on $12.54 billion in revenue.
Monthly active users (MAUs), one of the metrics that analysts use to gauge the health of the company, increased to 2.13 billion in the first quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of a 2.13 billion increase.
Daily active users (DAUs) fell short of the street estimates, rising to 1.4 billion versus 1.41 billion expected, while the social media company revealed that recent changes to its platform significantly reduced the amount of time user spend on the network.
"Already last quarter, we made changes to show fewer viral videos to make sure people's time is well spent. In total, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day," Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said in a press release.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) traded at $178.51 down 4.58% in after hours trade, after closing 0.12% lower at $186.89.