Facebook 'quadruples' number of advertisers over a year

The world's biggest social networking site, which has offices dotted around the world to serve its advertising customers did not divulge actual figures.

But Murphy did say that it has doubled its number of sales people over 2009 compared to 2008.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Murphy said: "We're very well positioned as people come out of this current economic situation. What we've become is absolutely core to marketing campaigns."

According to US advertising data supplied by ComScore, it ran 176 billion display ads in the first quarter of 2010 in the US alone, up from 70.7 billion in the previous year's quarter.

It also grew its share of the US display market from 11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009, to 16 per cent in the first quarter of this year, putting it ahead of rival Yahoo, whose share fell from 13 to 12 per cent in the same period.