The social networking site Facebook has revealed a huge increase in its profits during the first quarter of this year, surpassing the predictions of analysts.
The latest report shows profits of $642m (£383m) for the Period January to march 2014 and Facebook claim that this growth is due to mobile advertising, which has increased revenues by 72% to $2.5bn.
Following the report, Facebook shares rose by as much as 4.3% in after-hours trading.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement “Facebook’s business is strong and growing, and this quarter was a great start to 2014.
“We’ve made some long term bets on the future while staying focused on executing and improving our core products and business. We’re in a great position to continue making progress towards our mission.”
The company also reported it had 1.28 billion users during the January to March period, with over 1 billion of these using their mobile device to access the site.
Advertising revenue via mobile now holds 59% of the share, up from just 30% last year.