Facebook stock rose after founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his first major public appearance since the social network floated on the New York stock exchange in May.

In a candid assessment of the company's so far disastrous IPO, Zuckerberg said he was disappointed with falling share prices but declared the future for Facebook on mobiles was bright:

"You know this is the first time I've really spoken since the IPO publicly and it's one of the main things that I think is misunderstood right now is how fundamentally good it is on a bunch of different levels. I mean the first, is there are more users obviously, the second is that per person who's using Facebook on mobile, there's more engagement and they're spending more time, and then the third is that per amount of time that people spend on mobile we think we're going to make a lot more money than we do on desktop too."

The talk at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference gave the company's falling stock prices a much needed boost, with shares rising by 3.4 per cent each during after-hours trading.

Zuckerberg, who seems to still act like the underdog, said he was willing to prove those the doubters of Facebook's future wrong:

"You know, I personally, maybe this is a perverse thing personally, but , I would rather be in the cycle where people underestimate us, because I just personally would rather be underestimated, I think it gives us good latitude to go out and takes some big bats and do some things that really excite and amaze people."

Zuckerberg also quashed rumours that Facebook would be moving into developing hardware, and that there would be no such thing as a 'Facebook phone'.

"It's such a juicy thing to be able to say 'they're building this phone,' and that's why I think people wanted to write that, but, it's so clearly the wrong strategy for us."

Facebook's strategy for now is to stick to developing their network and engaging more users. Their challenge will be to continue to grow and crack new markets across the world in order please investors.

Written and presented by Alfred Joyner