Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has just announced its third consecutive quarterly revenue decline. At the same time, profit in the fourth quarter of 2022 also dropped sharply.
The reason comes from the unstable economic situation, rising costs and fierce competition in the social media segment. However, the results that Meta achieved still exceeded the expectations of analysts on Wall Street. Besides, the company also committed to focus on efficiency and cut operating costs next year.
“Our goal for 2023 is efficiency. We will focus on becoming a stronger and more resilient organization,” Zuckerberg said.
Specifically, the latest report said that in the fourth quarter of 2022, Meta’s revenue reached nearly 32.2 billion USD, down 4% compared to the same period last year. The social media giant’s quarterly net profit came in at just $4.7 billion, down 55% year-on-year and significantly below analyst expectations.
In November 2022, Meta announced plans to lay off 13% of all employees, equivalent to about 11,000 workers who lost their jobs. In a recent meeting, Susan Li, Meta’s CFO, said the company is also “freezing” hiring on a large scale and is expected to limit this throughout the year.
Also in the just-released report, Meta said the company will slightly cut spending in 2023, to about $30-33 billion. All costs will be focused on the company’s core applications, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
This is considered a move to reassure investors when Meta has repeatedly said that it will continue to promote the development of the metaverse. In the first quarter of 2023, Meta is expected to reach revenue between $26-28.5 billion.
“In 2022, our revenue grew negative for the first time in the company’s history. That won’t happen again, but it’s unlikely to go back to the way it was before. It’s been quite a period of change. fast, and we have to admit that the company can no longer grow as strongly as it used to,” Zuckerberg said.
Meta is “freezing” recruitment on a large scale and is expected to limit this throughout the year (Image: CNN).
Another positive is that the number of daily active users on Meta’s applications has increased by about 5% year-on-year to 2.96 billion users. Of which, Facebook has more than 2 billion daily active users.
“The company’s core business fell just over 4%, to almost $31.3 billion. This is a better-than-expected result,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com , said.
However, Meta’s average price per ad has dropped 22% year-on-year in 2021 and 16% overall in 2022. This comes as Meta struggles to adapt to the changes. about Apple’s privacy and the growing competition from rival TikTok.