Facebook has announced plans to open new offices in six locations, as part of an effort to expand in both emerging and established markets.

The new offices will be located in the US cities of Austin and Seattle as well as in Moscow, Singapore and Hyderabad, India. The company is also expected to reopen premises in Hamburg, Germany. The offices will act as customer support centres.

Don Paul, director of global online operations at Facebook, said in his blog: “As more and more people share and connect on Facebook, we are growing our operations and teams to support them around the world.

“The new offices come at a significant time in our international growth. Seventy percent of the people using Facebook are outside the US and are accessing the service from more than 70 languages.”

Mr Paul added that the firm was hiring people to join the online sales and operations teams that would be formed in the new locations.

Despite this expansion, it has been a difficult few weeks for Facebook, which has not managed to shake off allegations over customer privacy violations.

Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, admitted in an editorial in the Washington Post that the company had missed the mark on privacy, and said that a more straightforward policy would be implemented soon.

However, several privacy groups reacted negatively to Mr Zuckerberg’s words, with Privacy International calling Facebook’s efforts a promising start but ultimately a red herring. In a statement, the group said: “Facebook did not simplify its privacy settings. It merely made them less complex.”

Spencer Anderson