It first emerged that Facebook was considering going public in January this year, after it received .
, Mark Zuckerberg said he wants to hold off on the IPO until September next year or later so staff can focus on improvements to the social networking site, rather than payouts.
The IPO, which was widely rumoured to be in the first quarter of 2012, has been forecast to be one of the biggest in history, with the company now valued at $66.5bn.
, to $1.6bn, with net income for the first half of the year almost $500m.
Facebook declined to comment on the reports.
Last week, it was reported that Groupon, the group buying daily deals service was also considering delaying its IPO due to stock market volatility.
The news comes ahead of Facebook¹s f8 developer conference where it is widely expected to launch a music service in partnership with Spotify.
Other products the social networking site has launched over the past year include the its its email messaging service, its 'Places¹ check-in service, 'sponsored stories¹ ad products, mobile messaging app and video calling with Skype.
Separately, Facebook launched a new feature yesterday that enables users to receive another user's public updates without friending them as long as the user consents.
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