Facebook to sell over 84 million shares this week.

Facebook says it will sell 25% more shares than first planned in its flotation in response to strong demand. This will amount to about 84 million shares added to its initial public share offering The move comes one day after the social networking giant said it would raise the price of the shares by 21% to between $34-38 a share. It also comes despite doubts about the site's profitability site, which is largely used for social updates. Car giant General Motors added to those doubts by saying on Tuesday it would no longer pay to advertise on the site. However, rival Ford said it would continue its social media strategy. A spokesman said that for someone to buy his way into Facebook, he needs to have a credible presence and be doing innovative things. (IPO) and will now sell about 421 million shares, up from 337 million, raising $18bn (£11.3bn). This is still only a small percentage of the entire company, and implies Facebook's full market value is well above $100bn. The actual price of the shares is expected to be revealed on Thursday with open market trading pencilled in to begin on Friday. If all the shares are sold at the new higher price, the IPO would be the third-largest initial share sale in US history, after the financial giant Visa and General Motors. The company could add even more shares to the sale as there are more than 60 million additional shares that could be sold to cover excess demand. The eight-year-old social network has 900 million users worldwide and made a profit of $1bn last year. The new shareholders will not have much say in how the business is run. The shares on offer are "A" shares, which carry one vote per share, as is normal. culled from BBC