NEW YORK: Facebook shares staged a strong rally, buoyed by news of stronger-than-expected profits and sizzling gains in mobile advertising revenue.

The stock was up 14 percent at $61.01 in the first 20 minutes of trade, a day after the world’s biggest social network reported that profit in the fourth quarter jumped eightfold from a year earlier to $523 million, raising its net income for the year to $1.5 billion.

“Facebook’s ascendancy and execution in 2013 has been near-flawless,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Sandler in a note to clients.

Mark Mahaney at RBC Capital Markets said he was “more positive” on Facebook after the strong quarterly report.

“The most important Internet trend by far is mobile, and Facebook has become a mobile company,” he wrote in a research note.

Facebook reached a key milestone in the last quarter when more than half of its advertising revenue came from mobile devices.

The surge in revenue from members accessing Facebook from smartphones or tablet computers served as a validation of sorts for founder Mark Zuckerberg and his team.

Revenue rose 63 percent to $2.59 billion and profit excluding some items was 31 cents a share, the company said in a statement. Analysts on average had projected sales of $2.35 billion and profit of 27 cents, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.