In a Tuesday announcement, the popular social networking site Facebook said that with nearly 300 million monthly users worldwide, it is not only generating adequate cash to cover its operating expenses, but also the requisite capital expenditure for the maintenance of its fast-growing service.

Facebook, which had not expected to start turning a profit by 2010, recently revealed at a conference for start ups - TechCrunch 50 in San Francisco - that it had passed the two above-mentioned milestones; and that it had become a profitable business before the scheduled time.

Commenting on the notable achievements of Facebook, the company's vice president of engineering, Mike Schroepfer, told BBC News: "Passing these milestones to me means we can continue to fund our development and our innovation and be self sustaining as we grow this network. We think 300m is a just a step on the way to get as much of the entire world on the social network."

Going by the statistics, Facebook hit the 250-million-users mark only in July this year; and the site is approximately gaining nearly 5 million new users per week or probably as many as 50 million in the last 75 days!

Analysts opine that Facebook - which earlier faced questions about its core business model - has clearly become a financially viable company, thereby reflecting positive signs for its prospective initial public offering.