Facebook profits squeezed by costs

Билет №1

Provide the Kazakh/Russian translation of the newspaper article.

Facebook profits squeezed by costs

Facebook shares fell 2% in after-hours trading on Wall Street after the company posted slower revenue growth, while research and development costs ate into profits.

The social networking giant said profit in the first quarter of 2015 was $512m (£341m), down 20% on a year earlier.

While revenue rose 42% to $3.5bn, that was slightly below analysts' forecasts.

A bright spot was the rise in monthly active users, up 13% from a year earlier to 1.44 billion.

Notably, for those investors concerned about the firm's efforts to appeal to younger users who access Facebook on their smartphones, monthly mobile users increased by 24% to 1.25 billion, a majority of the site's users.

Facebook has been particularly adept at channelling that growing mobile user base into advertising dollars. The company said that during the quarter, revenue from mobile ad sales made up nearly three-quarters of total ad sales.

"This was a strong start to the year," said founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a statement.

Investors have been worried about slowing revenue growth, as well as increasing costs at the company. Facebook has been spending more on research and development as it moves beyond its original social networking operation.

Spending on research and development jumped to $566m from $181m a year earlier.

The company has warned that those costs are set to increase, as it looks to expand some of its acquisitions including photo-sharing site Instagram, messaging service WhatsApp, and virtual reality firm Oculus Rift.

"It's a generally solid quarter," said Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter. "The trends are all going in the right direction. The cost rise is one thing that can derail this story.

"The question is, can they keep costs under control and what will be the new revenue streams around video, Instagram and virtual reality around Oculus?"

Билет №2

Provide the Kazakh/Russian translation of the newspaper article.

Petrobras corruption costs hit $2bn

Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras has taken a $2bn (£1.3bn) charge for costs related to corruption.

The company has published accounts for last year showing an overall loss of $7.2bn.

The company's results also included an impairment charge of $14.8bn reflecting the decreased value of its assets.

Petrobras has been embroiled in a massive corruption scandal in which it is alleged that bribes were paid for lucrative contracts with the firm.

The scandal has hurt Petrobras and damaged President Dilma Rousseff's government.

Political fallout

In March hundreds of thousands of Brazilians protested against President Rousseff, who chaired the board of Petrobras for much of the period when the alleged bribes happened.

However, the president denies involvement and has been exonerated by an investigation by the attorney general.

More than 40 top politicians - including the presidents of both houses of Congress - are still under investigation, and the treasurer of the country's ruling party has been arrested.

Earlier on Thursday a judge convicted a former Petrobras executive of money laundering and racketeering for his role in the case, that involved bribes and illegal donations to political parties.

Paulo Roberto Costa, who was head of refining and supply, will serve part of his sentence under house arrest. He can still appeal.

Analysis: Daniel Gallas, South America business correspondent

Petrobras was supposed to be Brazil's "lottery ticket" - as it is sitting on top of one of the world's most valuable oil reserves.

But today it announced losses of $7bn for 2014 - its first loss in decades.

That number is based on witness statements to the police that 3% of each major contract between 2004 and 2012 was paid in kickbacks to politicians and executives.

Wednesday's announcement was highly anticipated in Brazil and in the markets, because previous figures were discredited.

Petrobras executives - all recently appointed to replace people involved in the scandal - hope this will draw a line, and that the company may finally start to move on.

Билет №3

Provide the Kazakh/Russian translation of the newspaper article.