Facebook has, for the first time in 18 years of it’s existence, recorded drop in Daily Active Users.
The tech company also recorded huge drop in it’s revenues as it’s shares dipped.
It warned of slowing revenue growth following stiff competition from platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
It also lamented drops in advertisements coming to it as advertisers are cutting spending.
According to Meta, Facebook’s patent company, the Daily Active Users (DAUs) fell to 1.929bn in the fourth quarter of 2021.
This was against the 1.930bn it got in the previous quarter.
Also, the company saw it’s shares plunging by 20% after it traded in New York.
The share plunge sent Facebook’s low share price shedding of $200bn of the company’s stock market value.
Meanwhile, Facebook isn’t the only company with poor growth rate.
Micro-blogging site Twitter and Pinterest and Snap Dragon also recorded dip in share trading.
Explaining this to newsmen, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, said younger users have left the platform for rival platforms.
Also, Meta said it is also losing revenue because Apple changed the privacy of it’s operating system.
Note that Meta’s total revenue from adverts narrowly exceeded market predictions as it stood at $33.67bn.
However, Mark Zuckerberg said. He is optimistic that the company’s investments in video and Virtual reality would pay off.
“The teams are executing quite well and the product is growing very quickly.”
The thing that is some what unique here is that TikTok is so big a competitor already and also continues to grow at quite a fast rate.”
Implication:
Facebook has always recorded growth over the past years. However, in the last few years, it recorded poor growth in both US and Europe.
This now means that Facebook is no longer the sole choice app for young people. TikTok and othe social media platforms have posed serious competition.
Also, another reasons people, especially advertisers, are cutting down on adverts on Facebook is because despite the rebranding into Meta to build the Metaverse, it has not made very huge progress in actualizing the Metaverse.
Advertisers also are skeptical as Meta is rather pumping huge money into building a new Metaverse.
Also, many users in the US think Facebook is a poisonous platform against teenage girls and youths in general.
Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter, Meta’s revenue stood at $32.79b with an operating income of just $15.89billion.
It’s Reality Labs raked in $877 million in revenue with $3.3 billion loss.
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