Facebook doubled its investment in “next generation” products like WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger in 2015, while continuing to invest in its core product, CFO Dave Wehner said in an earnings call.

The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg (pictured), said he found apps that perform best are those that “augment core Facebook functionality for large subsets of the community” such as the Pages Manager app, adding that 50 million businesses have pages on Facebook.

Another example is Messenger which is “connected to the Facebook experience” and has more than 800 million monthly active users (MAUs).

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“We see continued increase in video sharing and photos and stickers… But in terms of the business, the more important piece is how people can interact with businesses through Messenger,” the CEO said.

Facebook recently added a feature that allows users to request an Uber ride through Messenger and plans on introducing more such services soon, “including airlines”.

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Meanwhile, monthly active users (MAUs) for WhatsApp and Instagram was the same as last quarter, 900 million and 400 million respectively.

Regarding the recent decision to make WhatsApp free, Zuckerberg said: “We think this is an important step towards creating an even more ubiquitous product without affecting our plans for building WhatsApp into important business in the coming years.”

Facebook MAUs hit 1.59 billion as of 31 December, an increase of 14 per cent year-on-year, with mobile MAUs being 1.44 billion, an increase of 21 per cent.

In fact, 90 per cent of the people who used Facebook on both a monthly and daily basis accessed it via mobile devices.

Facebook’s quarterly profit crossed the $1 billion mark for the first time  in Q4 2015, with the company stating that it is making progress in its efforts to “capitalise on the shift to mobile”.

“With over 1.44 billion people using Facebook on mobile monthly and over 400 million monthly actives on Instagram, Facebook and Instagram have become the two most important mobile advertising platforms,” commented COO Sheryl Sandberg.