Facebook shares rise after Zuckerberg addresses mobile advertising concerns

Facebook Inc was up in late trading yesterday after chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said he was addressing the missteps that had made it hard to reap the benefits of mobile advertising.

''Now we are a mobile company,'' Zuckerberg said in an on- stage interview at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco yesterday, his first since Facebook's initial public offering. ''Over the next three to five years I think the biggest question that is on everyone's minds, that will determine our performance over that period, is really how well we do with  mobile.''

 Facebook shares rose around 4.8 per cent as the remarks soothed concerns over the ability of the social network to generate sales from users who were increasingly socialising over handheld devices. The stock had tanked 49 per cent since the 17 May IPO as signs of slowing growth emerged and executives maintained silence executives on plans to turn the tide.

Zuckerberg said the biggest mistake the company made was betting too much on HTML5.

Facebook was lessening its reliance on the tools, and had built an application better tailored for Apple Inc's mobile software, Zuckerberg said. He disclosed that the company was also working on an application for Google Inc's Android system. He added, new features would be available to the mobile service in the coming weeks and months, he said.

Zuckerberg said, considering the amount of time users spent on mobile, the company would make ''a lot more money'' via wireless devices than through desktops. Mobile users also tended to be more interactive than desktop users, he added.