Oculus convicted in rights violation lawsuit

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset released in March 2016. PIERRE TROUVÉ / THE WORLD

The virtual reality company Oculus, a subsidiary of Facebook, which was accused of designing its Rift headset using technologies stolen from another company, Zenimax, was found partly guilty Wednesday by jurors in a trial in Texas.

The jurors estimated the compensation to be paid at $500 million in total. This sum is significantly less than the $4 billion that Zenimax, a video game specialist, had demanded at the end of the trial. The jury did not hold the charges of technology theft, but convicted the Facebook subsidiary for violating a confidentiality agreement.

Good results at Facebook

The American social network Facebook, meanwhile, ended 2016 with better-than-expected results, with mobile advertising continuing to support its growth while its number of users increased even more.

The social network claimed 1.86 billion users at the end of December, compared to 1.79 billion three months earlier. The share of those who interact with the service on a daily basis is stable at 66%, Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday.

At the same time, the group’s net profit more than doubled to $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter, and almost tripled to $10.2 billion for the full year.

Its turnover has increased by 51% over the last three months, to $8.8 billion, and by 54% over twelve months to $27.6 billion.

Reassured markets

These levels are higher than analysts’ expectations, and are likely to reassure the market worried that growth will slow down, while the network itself has admitted that it can no longer significantly increase the number of advertisements that it incorporates into its users’ news feed, and which have been a real driver for it in recent years.

In the fourth quarter, the group’s advertising revenues increased by another 53% to $8.6 billion, and 84% of this total comes from mobile access to the group’s services.

In electronic trading following the close of Wall Street, Facebook shares gained 2.46% at around 22:30 p.m.

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The World with AFP