Facebook reports surge in revenue from ads

Social networking giant Facebook has announced an increase of 15 per cent in active users and as a result surge in advertising revenues as well by 57 per cent.

"We had a great start to the year. We are focused on our 10-year roadmap to give everyone in the world the power to share anything they want with anyone," said founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Last month, the site announced that it would be letting people order things within its chat services. People can head to the Messenger app and chat to their favourite flower or pizza company, the independent reports.

Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Facebook, Inc. held its initial public offering in February 2012 and began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original peak market capitalization of USD 104 billion.

On July 13, 2015, Facebook became the fastest company in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to reach a market cap of USD 250 billion. Following its Q3 earnings call in 2015, Facebook's market cap exceeded USD 300 billion.