WASHINGTON — Facebook shares fell as much as 9 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday on lower-than-expected revenue numbers from its second-quarter earnings report.
Revenue totaled $13.23 billion, shy of the $13.33 billion analysts expected, raising worries that the political and social backlash against the company is affecting its bottom line. The company beat the profit forecast, with $1.74 per-share earnings.
Strong ad sales from Google, Facebook’s main competitor for online advertising, had sent expectations for the social network’s earnings up, along with its stock price.
The number of monthly users — a key indicator of Facebook’s popularity — rose slightly, to 2.23 billion from 2.2 billion last quarter.