Facebook profit surges but shares tumble
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Despite posting strong growth in profit and revenue Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) shares have plunged on fears about the company's future earnings.

Facebook's first quarter profit soared 76.6 percent year-on-year to $3.06 billion while total revenue grew 49 percent to $8.03 billion.

But that wasn't enough to keep the company's stock near its record high with Facebook shares tumbling 2.4 percent in after-hours trading to $148.12.

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On Tuesday Facebook closed at a record high of $153.60.

The plunge may have been prompted by Facebook CFO David Wehner, who warned that ad revenue growth is expected to slow over the rest of the year.

He said that Facebook is nearing a limit in "ad load," or the number of ads it can place on users' pages before it adversely impacts the user experience.

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The company is working on introducing ads to appear in the middle of videos and on the Facebook Messenger app but those plans are still in the early stages of development.

But despite the somewhat gloomy outlook Facebook is still expected to generate $31.94 billion in mobile ad revenue this year, a 42.1 percent increase from last year, according to research firm eMarketer.

That would give Facebook 22.6 percent of the global mobile ad market, second only to Google, which is projected to take 35.1 percent share of the market.

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Reuters

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