Facebook beats forecasts with strong profit gains

Facebook said Wednesday that profit soared on the wings of mobile ad revenue but stressed it is more concerned with investing in the future than making quick cash.

While earnings figures surpassed market forecasts, Facebook executives strived to temper expectations, while stressing they plan to continue aggressively investing to achieve long-range goals.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg described 2014 as a year of heavy investments, with "big bets" placed on mobile communication and next-generation computing with multibillion-dollar buys of WhatsApp and the Oculus virtual reality startup.

Ranks of employees surged 45 percent last year and the company plans to continue bringing on new talent, executives said.

A strong showing in ads served up on smartphones or tablet computers helped Facebook earnings beat analyst forecasts: profit in the final three months of last year jumped to $696 million as revenue surged to $3.85 billion.

But investors will be concerned by an 87 percent rise in costs and expenses.

Shares sank slightly, more than one percent to $75.05, in after-market trades that followed release of the figures.

Despite claims from competitors that Facebook is losing relevance with a younger audience the number of people using the leading social network monthly climbed to 1.39 billion.

Zuckerberg told financial analysts the company was focused on serving the entire world with projects such as Internet.org, and that would require a lot of effort and investing over a course of years.