Some 10 million Australians spend much of their online surfing accessing their Facebook accounts, with most using their mobile handsets as the preferred tool for posting updates and sharing contents on the popular social networking site.

The latest figures serve as lead for advertisers who are either streamlining or localising their ad campaigns and Australia is fast-proving its worth as one of the world's major market in online advertisements.

Facebook currently counts up to 500 million global users, an exponential growth that the company largely attributed to wider mobile access which Facebook regional vice-president for Australia and New Zealand Paul Borrud stressed is a trend unlikely to experience reversal anytime soon.

Borrud said that Australian Facebook users visiting their accounts at least once a month increased two-fold since May of last year as he added that they spend much longer time on the social networking site than anyone else.

Facebook also revealed that up to 40 percent of its account holders accessed the site though mobile phones, a number that represents the most active users of the popular website.

Borrud, however, maintained that the great number of Australians engage in Facebook activities does not ensure that advertisers would be automatically enticed as he stressed that advertisers also emphasised "the amount of engagement and sharing and who is influencing their friends."

With that in mind and to take advantage of the exploding Facebook users both in Australia and New Zealand, the site's regional management is adapting the Deals scheme initiated in the United States on November.

The free service allows companies to flash their advertisements on Facebook and at the same time, provide special deals and discounts on their services to the popular site's millions of account holders.

Online advertising experts said that Facebook has yet to cash on its popularity and collect more ad revenues, only managing to make some tens of millions annually, yet as advertisers increasingly turn their attention on people's social networking activities, experts said Facebook could be in for another round of windfall coming from global companies' advertising expenditures.