SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that new rules and product changes aimed at protecting users' privacy would slow its revenue growth into next year and significantly raise expenses, taking the shine off quarterly revenue results that beat expectations.The outlook was the latest twist in a day of contrasting news for the world's largest social media company. Facebook earlier agreed to pay $5 billion to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission data privacy probe but then disclosed that the regulator was now investigating it for anti-competitive behaviour.The settlement, which lawmakers and privacy experts criticized as a "slap on the wrist" for a company whose revenues last year topped $55 billion, suggested that Facebook had moved past a major regulatory challenge that has dogged it over the last year.But Facebook's chief financial officer, Dave Wehner, warned that operational changes required by the settlement would be costly. In addition, he said, revenue will be hurt by new limits on usage of consumer data being set by governments around the world and by tech companies on whose systems Facebook relies. The shares have recouped most of the losses sparked a year ago on concerns of slowing usage and the costs of improving privacy.For the quarter, Facebook reported 2.7 billion monthly users and 2.1 billion daily users across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, both figures about the same as last quarter. Excluding the settlement and a $1.1 billion one-time tax expense, earnings would have been $1.99 per share, Facebook said.The expectations for its ad business and cost forecasts could hurt profit margins, particularly in the fourth quarter, Facebook said.

Source: Economic Times July 25, 2019 00:22 UTC