Facebook recorded a strong fourth quarter as profits climbed to $6.9bn (£5.3bn) - an all-time record - despite a year of scandals plaguing the social media giant.

The platform managed to boost its global user database and revenue shot up 30% from a year ago to $16.9bn (£12.9bn).

The number of monthly users on Facebook, which makes most of its money from online advertising, went up 9% to 2.3 billion, the firm said in its latest update.

Net profit was up 61% from the same period last year.

Shares in the tech giant jumped 11.5% to $167.67 (£127.80) in after-market trades following the release of the earnings.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and chief executive, said the platform's "community and business continues to grow".

The update showed the social network had increased its user base in the US and in Europe, where the platform has faced challenges over data protection.

Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst from research firm eMarketer, said the results showed Facebook had "clearly demonstrated that the challenges of 2018 have not had a lasting impact on its ability to increase both revenues and usage".

"Advertisers are clearly still very reliant on Facebook," she added.

It comes after Facebook pledged to hire thousands of workers and invest in new technology in response to concerns about abuse, manipulation and data protection.

Mr. Zuckerberg said: "We've fundamentally changed how we run our company to focus on the biggest social issues, and we're investing more to build new and inspiring ways for people to connect."

However, Facebook executives warned that expenses this year would soar 40% to 50% as they invest in data centres and security.

In September last year, Facebook said 50 million users were affected by a security breach which potentially enabled hackers to take over people's accounts.

Earlier this month, Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, dropped his lawsuit against the platform for running scam advertisements featuring his name and image.

The platform also removed 364 pages and accounts linked to employees of Russian news agency Sputnik from its platform this month as part of investigations into networks of accounts created to "mislead others".

It also emerged that Facebook paid children as young as 13 to install software on their phones which allowed the company to collect data on how they used its competitors' apps.