Download Facebook Inc rose in late trading last week after Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said he's addressing the missteps that have 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 on Sept 12, 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." Shares in Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, climbed as much as 4.8 percent as the remarks allayed concerns over the company's ability to generate sales from users who are increasingly socializing over handheld devices. The stock had plunged 49 percent since the May 17 IPO amid signs of slowing growth and executives' silence over plans to turn the tide. "He struck an upbeat tone," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co in San Francisco. "Clearly, from his words, they are making progress in mobile." Zuckerberg, who appeared at ease while trading laughs with his interviewer, for the first time elaborated on technical struggles that have impeded Facebook from creating a user- and advertiser-friendly mobile application. The company spent too long trying to build mobile products using a programming language known as HTML5, Zuckerberg said. |