Washington, Apr 28 (IANS): Socila media giant Facebook reported a $1.5 billion first-quarter profit in 2016, or 52 cents per share, nearly triple of last year's profits of $512 million in the same period.

"We had a great start to the year,"said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement on Wednesday.

"We are focused on our 10 year roadmap to give everyone in the world the power to share anything they want with anyone," he added.

The company also announced an increase of 52 percent in revenues in the first three months of 2016 to $5.38 billion and said that 1.65 billion people use Facebook at least once a month, up 15 percent, EFE news reported.

Overall, Facebook recorded 1.09 billion active users in March, an increase of 16 percent compared to the same month in 2015.

Most new Facebook users in the last two years are from Asia, Africa and South America, and two-thirds are outside the US, Canada and Europe.