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Beating back weeks of bad news involving exposure of its users’ personal data, Facebook Inc. today reported first-quarter results that handily beat expectations that were tempered by worries that advertisers might start to shy away.

That clearly didn’t happen, though honestly few people expected it. The social network giant said its net profit jumped 63 percent, to just under $5 billion, on a 49 percent rise in revenue, to just under $12 billion.

That easily beat forecasts by analysts, who on average had expected a profit of $1.35 a share on $11.4 billion in revenue. However, the company got a $536 million benefit from foreign exchange rate changes, and subtracting that would have brought revenue back down to $11.4 billion.

Shares rose more than 7 percent in after-hours trading. In regular trading, shares closed flat at $159.69 a share. They’re down about 11 percent in the last three months, nearly double the decline of the S&P 500 index. Update: On an up day for the overall market Thursday, Facebook’s shares were rising more than 9 percent.

“Despite facing important challenges, our business and community are off to a strong start,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in comments on an earnings conference call. “Overall, 2018 is a year of important investment.”

The results are being closely watched because this is the first quarter after Zuckerberg (pictured) spent two days getting grilled by several congressional committees two weeks ago. That was in response to the revelations that British political consulting Cambridge Analytica firm improperly used personal data from at least 85 million Facebook members to help target ads, mostly in support of the candidacy of President Donald Trump.

The lack of an apparent impact on Facebook’s results from the Cambridge Analytica scandal is surely because the story didn’t break until two weeks before the first quarter ended, though the company has faced a rising chorus of criticism over its role in manipulative political advertising for much of the past year or more.

But it also could be that advertisers care more about the return on their ad spending than about the controversy. Indeed, some observers and regulators are worried that data limits such as those in the European Union’s imminent General Data Protection Regulation could even boost the dominance of Facebook and Google LLC.

“We believe that ad spend on the platform has remained stable,” Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO of social media marketing platform Socialbakers, said in an email to SiliconANGLE. “The data does reflect a small hiccup after the day the Cambridge Analytica story broke but a return to business as usual a few days after. There is a big gap between media reporting on the #DeleteFacebook movement and reality when it comes to brands, who seem to be as active as ever.”

Moreover, the company has taken a series of steps to limit abuse of data, including several announcements Tuesday that limit other sites’ access to user data and accounts. As a result, Cowen & Co. analyst John Blackledge said in a recent note to clients, although political and regulatory issues will continue, “our underlying expectation is that FB continues to gain share in global digital advertising.”

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said a “handful” of advertisers had “paused” ads on Facebook in the days following the Cambridge Analytical revelations, but one of those had returned. She didn’t address how many had paused ads or the prospects for the rest to return.

Three months ago, executives sought to dampen growth expectations — even if today they handily beat them. Zuckerberg, who in January announced that improving Facebook would be his annual personal goal this year, said a reduction in viral videos shown reduced time spent on the site by about 5 percent, or a little over two minutes per daily user. But Sandberg insisted that a better site experience ultimately would make Facebook more attractive to advertisers.

Facebook gained on the user front during the quarter. Daily active users rose 13 percent from a year ago, to 1.45 billion, and monthly active users rose at the same rate, to 2 billion.

It’s likely costs will continue to be a concern going forward. Total costs and expenses rose 39 percent in the quarter from a year ago, to $6.5 billion, and capital spending leaped 121 percent, to $2.81 billion. Headcount jumped 48 percent, to 27,742 as of March 31.

Chief Financial Officer Dave Wehner narrowed the range of expected operating expenses to between 50 and 60 percent, the low figure of the range up from 45 percent forecast in January. Those increased costs include spending to make content and data safer and more secure as well as continued spending on data centers, servers and offices. Moreover, capital spending for the entire year will come in at $15 billion, the high end of the previous range provided. Wehner also reiterated earlier predictions that revenue growth rates will decelerate for the rest of this year.

One analyst who has had a sell rating on Facebook shares viewed the results as mixed. “While the overall results from the quarter were positive, nothing we heard today causes us to alter our negative view on the stock,” Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group said in a note to clients today. Among the many reasons are rising expenses and the risks of European data regulations starting next month.

The bottom line, though, is that the company continues to mint money. It even added $9 billion to its share repurchase plan, on top of a previous, mostly completed $6 billion program. Facebook and Google LLC command close to half of all online ad spending and virtually all the growth in the market, according to Pivotal Research Group.

Next week, the company hosts its annual F8 developers conference in San Jose, California, where Zuckerberg and other executives may face a friendlier audience than they have recently.

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE