Mobile top priority in 2012, Zuckerberg tells investors

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, laying out the company’s growth strategy to investors, said transforming its mobile and advertising experience are top priorities in 2012.

Integrating online apps more strongly into Facebook is also a major goal, he told hundreds of investors at the first week of Facebook’s cross-country “roadshow” to pitch its highly anticipated initial public offering.

Facebook aims to raise about $10.6 billion, dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google Inc and valuing it at up to $96 billion — rivaling Amazon.com Inc.

Zuckerberg, said Facebook’s key priorities in 2012 were to improve its mobile application, to build stronger ties incorporating its social network with other online apps and to create a “transformative” advertising experience. The company is “just getting started” with its mobile app, said Zuckerberg, adding, “over the next 10 years or so, every consumer category should be transformed to be built around people.”

“People will listen to music and watch TV with other people” through Facebook. “We only recently reached this tipping point,” Zuckerberg said.

Facebook has indicated an IPO price range of $28 to $35 a share on Thursday, which would value the company at $77 billion to $96 billion.

Asked about Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of mobile app maker Instagram, its largest acquisition, Zuckerberg said the deal was under consideration for one to two months before it occurred. The number of Instagram users has already grown from 30 million to 50 million since the deal was announced in early April, he noted.