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While the growth in Facebook’s number of users continues to astound the company unfortunately failed to meet its earnings estimates last quarter. This comes as it released a new “Hello” app which comes with a fatal flaw: users may see dead people in their lists.
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The company posted its slowest growth in quarterly revenues in the past 2 years.
Facebook posted $3.54 billion in revenue for Q1 2015, just short of the expected $3.56 billion. On the bright side, it showed a $0.42 earnings per share ahead of the expected $0.40.
Facebook cited several causes for the lower than expected revenue, including the recent drop in the Euro’s value against the Dollar.
The company saw a 5% increase in its monthly mobile users reaching more than 1.25 billion. It reported 798 million daily users for a 7.1% increase. 581 million of its users now only access Facebook from their mobile devices.
Facebook’s growth grate in users can only slow down as it gets closer to seeing every person in the world with Internet access becoming a customer.
In order to continue to grow as a company and keep users happy Facebook must find new and innovative services to offer its users. This is what it is trying to do with its new “Hello” App.
The new app will let users better identify incoming calls and block unwanted callers from reaching their mobile devices. The settings will allow you to choose numbers to block and calls from them will go directly to voice mail.
Facebook says that the app will also let users more easily search for businesses and people and call them with “just one tap.”
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In its blog the company said, “So if a friend tells you about a new restaurant in your neighborhood, you can use Hello to find their hours, make a reservation and get directions, all without leaving the app.”
There is one very grim hitch, however, with the new app. Damon Beres, writing in The Huffington Post, pointed out that he was given the contact information of his friend’s younger brother by mistake. This would not ordinarily be a big deal, but his friend’s brother had died two years ago.
As Beres explained, “’Hello’ will pull the number that’s primarily associated with your account rather than the phone number you may have set to be viewable by your friends. Keep that in mind if you’re keeping a phone number private for any reason.”
“Hello” is now available for download from the Android store.
