1.929 billion daily users or a 27% drop in stock price are just two of the bad numbers for Facebook and parent company Meta this past week.
Meta's stock price plunged on February 3, shortly after the news that Facebook's user growth appeared to have peaked when the social network failed to attract more monthly users in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the same period last year. last.
However, this is only one part of the series of problems the company is facing, with negative indicators making analysts skeptical about the future of social networking.
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| Facebook app on phone. Photo: Reuters |
1,929 billion - daily users
According to the financial report for the fourth quarter of 2021, Facebook reached 1.929 billion daily users, down from 1.930 billion in the previous quarter. In which, North America, which brings the highest revenue of Facebook, is the region with the largest decrease.
This drop is very small in theory, but marks a dark milestone as the first time this social network has recorded a decline in daily users globally in a quarter since its founding in 2004.
User growth is slowing down in the Americas and Europe, while the biggest losses are seen in Africa and Latin America. That's a worrying sign given Facebook's plans to expand beyond key markets.
230 billion USD - capitalization evaporated in a day
The user growth report sent Meta stock down 27% in a day and its market capitalization down $230 billion - an unprecedented level in the US market. This leads analysts to ask a question that never seemed to exist: Are the good days over for Meta?
There are many reasons for stagnant growth, such as difficulty in attracting young users, fierce competition from TikTok, changes in Apple's privacy policy, and the launch of the metaverse.
10 billion USD - damage from metaverse
One of the factors that led to Meta's disappointing sales was the huge investment in the metaverse. The company said Reality Labs - the division that develops Quest VR smart glasses, VR virtual reality software and some other metaverse-serving products - only achieved $ 2.3 billion in revenue and a loss of $ 10.2 billion. last year.
This does not seem to come as a surprise to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He once set a plan to spend at least 10 billion USD on the metaverse in 2021 and warned it would not be profitable in the near future.
10 billion USD - damage when iOS changes
Meta is expected to lose another $10 billion because of the Application Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature introduced in iOS 14.5. This feature allows users to prevent apps from tracking their activity, making Meta-targeted ads less effective.
A survey of 2.5 million iOS users in the US in mid-2021 showed that only 4% chose to agree, while 96% did not allow online tracking applications. According to another survey of 5.3 million iOS users globally, only 12% of users opt-in and will continue to be tracked by third-party apps, while the remaining 88% choose to opt-out.
$29 billion - decrease in Mark Zuckerberg's fortune
The plunge in Meta's shares also caused the personal fortune of the CEO of Meta to decrease by about $29 billion. This is one of the largest single-day declines in wealth ever recorded, even though Zuckerberg is still among the richest people in the world.
However, experts say that Meta still has a huge reserve of money, a large user base and brand reputation. This could be a scary week for Meta, but it's unlikely to have an impact on the company's vitality.
Via The Next Web
