Wall Street Says No to Facebook’s Meta for Now
Posted on 02/02/2022
After the market close, Facebook shares plunged more than 21% on weak earnings (not expected). Facebook rebranded as Meta Platforms, Inc. Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.93 billion on average for December 2021, an increase of 5% year-over-year.
Facebook expects first quarter 2022 total revenue to be in the range of US$ 27 to US$ 29 billion, which represents 3% to 11% year-over-year growth. They expect year-over-year growth in the first quarter to be impacted by headwinds to both impression and price growth. On the impressions side, they expect continued headwinds from both increased competition for people’s time and a shift of engagement within their apps towards video surfaces like Reels, which monetize at lower rates than Feed and Stories.
On the pricing side, Facebook expects growth to be negatively impacted by factors such as Apple’s iOS changes and modestly increasing ad targeting and measurement headwinds from platform and regulatory changes.
UPDATE- February 3, 2022
Facebook lost daily users for the first time in its 18-year history. Facebook reported a drop of nearly 500,000 in daily logins during the last three months of 2021. “People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during an earnings call Wednesday.