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Facebook: 'We'll be a mobile company' within the next two years

September 28, 2011 — 8:42am ET | By Jason Ankeny

A week after Facebook stated that 350 million of its 800 million worldwide users now access its social networking services via mobile device each month, head of mobile products Erick Tseng said the company is on track to become as much a mobile platform as it is a desktop platform within the next two years.

"It's interesting that if you take a look at our top line of growth, we're getting to the point that the countries we're getting into now are ones that don't really use computers at all," Tseng said Tuesday during GigaOM's Mobilize conference. "The predominant ways people are connecting in Africa, in India, is through their mobile devices. As [Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg] touched on a few days ago, we now have over 350 million mobile users. Within another year or two, we'll be a mobile company, with one-half mobile users."

Earlier this month, research firm Nielsen reported Facebook is now the most popular mobile application across all operating systems, with 37 percent of all social media users in the U.S. now accessing social platforms via mobile device. In addition to app users, Facebook boasts a unique mobile web audience surpassing 46 million.

Facebook is expected to unveil its long-awaited application for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad tablet during Apple's iPhone 5 launch event on Oct. 4. Mashable reports Facebook may also roll out a revamped version of its iPhone application, as well as an HTML5-based mobile app marketplace.

Tseng was mum on the subject: "Yeah... the iPad app," he said Tuesday. "The iPad is great. It's a fantastic device... but nothing to announce at this point. If you want to get the Facebook fix, there are a number of [iPad] apps that weren't developed by us."

For more:
- read this TechCrunch article