AGENCIES: Facebook reported first-quarter revenue growth of 26 percent from last year to reach 15.08 billion U.S. dollars, according to its report released on Wednesday.

Earnings from advertising in the first quarter increased 26 percent year on year from 11.8 billion dollars last year, Facebook said, adding that the earnings of the mobile advertising sector accounted for 93 percent of the quarterly revenue for this year.

However, the tech giant has seen its net income dropping to 2.43 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2019, down by 51 percent year on year.

Facebook said it is setting aside about 3 billion dollars in the first quarter to pay for possible fines to be imposed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for its violation of rules governing data privacy.

“In the first quarter of 2019, we reasonably estimated a probable loss and recorded an accrual of 3.0 billion dollars in connection with the inquiry of the FTC into our platform and user data practices,” Facebook said.

“We estimate that the range of loss in this matter is 3.0 billion dollars to 5.0 billion dollars. The matter remains unresolved,” it added.

As for other services, Facebook said more than 2.1 billion people are using its “family of services” including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger on a daily average basis.

About 2.7 billion people are accessing service on one of the company’s platforms every month, it said. Daily active users stood at 1.56 billion on average for March 2019, increasing 8 percent year on year, while monthly active users also recorded an 8 percent growth to hit 2.38 billion as of March 31, 2019, said Facebook.

By the end of the first quarter this year, Facebook’s headcount has risen 36 percent year on year to reach 37,773, according to the firm’s financial report.