Anything For You All: Facebook increased its daily active users in Q1, but revenue dipped

Facebook increased its daily active users in Q1, but revenue dipped

Facebook's negative publicity in recent months hasn't deterred people from using its platform, judging by the continued growth of the company's user base.

As this chart by Statista shows, Facebook daily active users (DAUs) steadily increased every quarter for the last year, which ha been the case for every quarter since the company went public in 2012.

This time, though, the DAUs increase came in spite of months of scrutiny regarding the way Facebook handles consumer data. The hashtag #DeleteFacebook began trending when the news spread that third-party data analytics company Cambridge Analytica had used data from 87 million profiles to influence voters in the 2016 election, but it seems like most users haven't really acted on the hashtag.

Overall, Facebook reported a favorable first quarter on Wednesday, although this chart from Statista does show that Facebook struggled to convert its user growth into revenue. Revenue dipped below $12 billion and average revenue per user (ARPU) declined slightly.

This dip isn't irregular, though: Facebook saw a similar quarter-over-quarter drop in ARPU last year (-10% for Q1 2017 versus -10.5% for Q1 2018), meaning it could simply be a cyclical trend. The Cambridge Analytica scandal hit towards the end of the quarter in March, so the effects on revenue — which for Facebook is primarily generated from advertising — and ARPU may not show until next quarter's earnings.

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