Facebook keeps aside $3 bn ahead of US FTC fine

San Francisco: Battling several privacy violations, Facebook has kept aside $3 billion, anticipating a record fine coming from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) related to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that involved 87 million users.

"In the first quarter of 2019, we reasonably estimated a probable loss and recorded an accrual of $3 billion in connection with the inquiry of the FTC into our platform and user data practices," the social networking giant wrote in its earnings statement late Wednesday.

"We estimate that the range of loss in this matter is $3 billion to $5 billion," added Facebook.

The US FTC judgment on Facebook's privacy violation is slated to come later this year.

In its first quarter earnings, the company posted 26 per cent increase in revenue at $15.1 billion, beating Wall Street estimates.

"We had a good quarter and our business and community continue to grow," said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

"We are focused on building out our privacy-focused vision for the future of social networking, and working collaboratively to address important issues around the Internet," he added in a statement.

The daily active users (DAUs) hit 1.56 billion on average for March, an increase of 8 per cent year-over-year.

Monthly active users (MAUs) on Facebook reached 2.38 billion - also an increase of 8 per cent year-over-year.

Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 93 per cent of Facebook's advertising revenue for the first quarter -- up from approximately 91 per cent of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2018.

"In addition, we estimate that more than 2.1 billion people now use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger every day on average, and around 2.7 billion people use at least one of our family of services each month," said the social networking giant.