Facebook smashed investors’ expectations with a 52 per cent jump in quarterly revenue as it sold more ads targeted at a fast-growing number of mobile users, sending its shares sharply higher after hours.

The world’s biggest online social network bucked the trend of underwhelming tech results from Apple and eBay, in the face of economic uncertainty around the world and a strong US dollar depressing the value of overseas sales.

“It’s phenomenal at these (currency headwind) levels that they’re accelerating to that level of growth,” said Rob Sanderson, an analyst at MKM Partners.

Facebook’s dominance in mobile advertising helped to allay Wall Street concerns over its heavy investments in messaging service WhatsApp and virtual reality unit Oculus, which have not yet generated profits.

Facebook shares rose almost 12 per cent in after-hours trading to $105.32.

Total revenue rose to $5.84 billion from $3.85 billion a year earlier, with ad revenue increasing 56.8 per cent to $5.64 billion in the holiday shopping period, when spending on advertising typically spikes. Apart from focusing on mobile, Facebook has been ramping up spending on what it calls “big bets,” including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and drones to connect the remotest parts of the world to the internet.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who returned from two months of paternity leave on Monday, has said virtual reality represents the next major computing platform.

The company has also begun monetising some of its other units, such as photo-sharing app Instagram, which surpassed 400 million users last year and began selling ads in September.

Facebook said mobile ads accounted for 80 per cent of total ad revenue in the quarter, compared with about 78 per cent in the third quarter and 69 per cent a year earlier.

Facebook said it had 1.59 billion monthly active users as of December 31, up 14 per cent from the end of 2014. Of those, 1.44 billion used the service on mobile devices, an increase of 21 per cent.

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