2017.05.0400:19:00UTC+00Mobile Ad Powers Facebook’s Revenue Growth

Digital advertising on its social media platforms continued to fuel Facebook Inc., but executives attempted to cool investors' hype regarding sales-growth prospects by reiterating a warning that there is a limitation to the number of ads it could showcase.

The tech giant's first-quarter profit jumped 76 percent to $3.06 billion, easing concerns that criticism of over video-ad performance and the increasing volume of violent and graphic content on the platform would hinder growth.

Quarterly revenue jumped 49 percent to $8.03 billion, an indication of how marketers are increasingly allocating their budget for Facebook and Instagram. According to CFO David Wehner, Facebook and its mobile phone-sharing app Instagram are the firm's two most important mobile-advertising platforms. Monthly users also grew by 17 percent to 1.94 billion.

However, during a conference call following the quarterly earnings result, the firm said that it anticipates revenue growth to dramatically slow after its move to stop increasing the frequency of marketing in the news feed to avoid alienating users. COO Sheryl Sandberg said that Facebook is now turning its attention to enhancing the ads quality and targeting messages, aiming for quality over quantity.

Facebook shares declined by as much as 4.2 percent, as the warning overshadowed the strong results.