Facebook Just Became $15 Billion More Valuable In 30 Minutes

NEW YORK (AP) -- Facebook's stock is soaring after the company reported a 60 percent revenue increase in the third quarter, surpassing Wall Street's expectations.

The world's largest social network said Wednesday that it earned $425 million, or 17 cents per share. That's up from a loss of $59 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

The company's stock jumped $6.14, or 12.5 percent, to $55.15 in after-hours trading.

That means that Facebook's market value rose by nearly $15 billion in the 30 minutes after NASDAQ closed at 4 p.m. EST.

Adjusted earnings were $621 million, or 25 cents per share. That's 6 cents better than analysts expected.

Revenue grew 60 percent to $2.02 billion from $1.26 billion.

Analysts, on average, had expected revenue of $1.91 billion, according to FactSet.

Facebook's advertising revenue was $1.8 billion, up 66 percent from a year ago.