Facebook beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly revenue on increased digital ad spend as the world emerges from lockdown restrictions.

Total revenue, which primarily consists of ad sales, jumped to $26.17bn in the three months to 31 March, beating estimates of $23.67bn.

Earnings came in at $3.30 per share versus the expected $2.37 forecast.

Facebook has been a huge beneficiary of worldwide lockdowns but the company has recently indicated plans to expand its revenue streams.

Read more: Google owner Alphabet beats revenue expectations as ad spend recovers

Earlier this week it announced its launch into the audio market as a rival to Clubhouse which has boomed over the pandemic. 

The social media giant said it would build a new set of audio creation features in order to support people using the site to make their own content.

“The Facebook ecosystem covering the blue app and Instagram is stronger than ever and the introduction of Apple’s iOS14.5 privacy controls – giving more control to iPhone users to not be tracked across apps – won’t slow Facebook down, in fact, it may accelerate it as it has its own consumer data profiles that can be used across its ecosystem to help advertisers reach their consumers,” Tom Johnson, Chief Transformation Officer at Mindshare Worldwide said.

“Whereas growth for brands used to be driven by opening up new geographical markets or launching new products, increasingly it is also becoming about leveraging the global digital platforms to best effect and Facebook is a giant in this respect.”

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Tech earnings have so far been mixed this week with analysts reacting fairly negatively to Microsoft results despite the company beating Wall Street expectations. 

However Google owner Alphabet sent the S&P 500 higher this afternoon after a strong performance in the quarter and adding $50bn more to its buyback programme.