Findings by consulting firm Deloitte and Touche, released earlier in the week, found that Facebook generates economic activity amounting to around 227 billion US dollars, as opposed to the 220 billion US dollars the Portuguese Gross Domestic Product totalled in 2013.
The study further found that the social media network also created around 4.5 million jobs last year, roughly the amount of people currently in employment in Portugal.
The report took into account the activities of businesses who maintain a Facebook presence and app developers and game makers who are dependent on its network.
It also claims that Facebook generates roughly one-sixth of the world’s smartphone sales, along with significant demand for internet services.
Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters that “people believe that technology creates jobs in the tech sector and destroys jobs everywhere else - this report shows that’s not true.”
She added: “We’re no longer in a place where large companies can create the jobs [that] the world needs.”
But these findings are being challenged by economists who, in comments to the Wall Street Journal this week, said it is virtually impossible to put a monetary value on the social network and that the findings were subjective.
In related news, Facebook said this week that it will continue to invest in and develop more capabilities for its Messenger application, such as voice-to-text transcription and tools for consumers to talk to businesses.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of the Digital Life Design Conference in Munich, David Marcus, Facebook’s vice president of messaging products, said there was an ambitious roadmap in 2015 for Messenger, which has more than 500 million monthly active users.
Marcus told the financial newspaper that Facebook has begun testing voice-to-text transcription, based on machine-learning technology.