Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, claimed that it is clear the company can now “create a lot of value for developers by providing a platform for identity and distribution”.

Speaking in a results conference call, the executive acknowledged that “because of the rules Apple and Google have in this space with their app stores, it wasn’t this clear earlier on what kind of a role Facebook can play”.

However, he continued that mobile app install ads are “growing quite well” to become “one of our most important new ad products”. “This supports our hypothesis that Facebook should help you discover new apps and content that you may want to use”, he said.

According to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, during the quarter 3,800 developers used install ads to drive nearly 25 million downloads, and of the top 100 grossing apps from both Android and iOS in the last week of Q1, “about 40 per cent” used these promotional tools.

Zuckerberg said that the company has had a “long roadmap” of tools for iOS and Android developers which make “building social apps and advertising with Facebook as easy on mobile as it is on the desktop web”. He noted that 81 of the top 100 grossing iOS apps and 70 of the top Android titles are already integrated with the social networking service.

And he also touched on Facebook’s recent acquisition of Parse, a cloud-based app backend provider, stating that this is “part of our strategy to provide greater support for developers”.