April 28 Reuters Facebook Inc beat market expectations for quarterly revenue on Wednesday, powered by higher ad spending by businesses during a pandemicinduced surge in online traffic.

Shares of Facebook rose 6.6 in trading after the bell.

Total revenue, which primarily consists of ad sales, rose to 26.17 billion in the first quarter ended March 31, beating analysts average estimate of 23.67 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The worlds largest social media company said in its outlook that it expected secondquarter revenue growth to be stable or grow moderately, but warned that the third and fourthquarter growth rates could significantly decline when compared with past periods of increasingly strong growth.

It cited that a new popup privacy notification from Apple Inc could hurt the business during the second quarter.

Facebooks monthly active users rose 10 to 2.85 billion, matching analyst expectations.

Net income for the first quarter came in at 9.5 billion, or 3.30 per share, compared with 4.9 billion, or 1.71 per share, a year earlier. Analysts had expected a profit of 2.37 per share.

The company said its total expenses for the year would be in the range of 70 billion to 73 billion, as it invests in consumer hardware products and infrastructure.

Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain, Sheila Dang and Elizabeth Culliford Editing by Arun Koyyur and Matthew Lewis

Source Reuters