Meta, for the first time in history, falling revenues, collapse of profits

New York – For the first time in its history Meta“Parent” of Facebook, has experienced a decline in revenues: $ 28.82 billion versus $ 28.94 expected in the second quarter. A year ago it was 29.07 billion. But that’s not all: a minus sign also for the number of active users per month, 2.93 billion compared to 2.94 in the estimate. The revenue margin on each user also decreased, $ 9.82 against the 9.83 expected and that, overall, of profits, which fell to 6.69 billion, -36% compared to the same period of 2021. Wall Streetaccording to the data shown by FactSet, they had expected profits of 7.04 billion. Too optimistic. For four years the business of Facebook they had grown up without ever knowing uncertainties, going beyond all analysts’ forecasts, but with Meta things are changing.

Since the beginning of 2022 the parent of Facebook lost almost fifty percent of the value of its shares, ending up spreading a certain alarm among investors, worried about the real health of the platform and on the weight of competition TikTok, which would have affected the negative data. The future looks no better. The forecasts for the third quarter, according to Meta, foresee a “continuation of the weak demand for advertising that we experienced throughout the second quarter, and which we believe caused by the uncertainty at the macroeconomic level”. According to analysts’ forecasts, revenues in the third quarter are expected to decline further by at least two percent, up to a maximum of 11 percent, in line with what has been done by other industry giants such as Snap e Twitter who have reported disappointing results. There is talk of a range that goes from 26 to 28.5 billion, well below the expected 30.4. The negative data comes at an unhappy time: Meta has ended up in the sights of the Federal Trade Commission regarding the agreement to purchase the virtual reality company Within. At the beginning of the week the company of Mark Zuckerberg had announced a $ 100 increase in the price of Oculus Quest 2the most popular virtual reality device, citing the increase in production and shipping costs.

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