Meta (Facebook) drops 23% on the stock market after disappointing results
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, published its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2021 and there are disappointments when it comes to users. This quickly made itself felt on the stock market with a fall in the stock.
A disappointment for the number of users
In the last quarter of 2021, Facebook had 2.91 billion users, only up 4% from the same period a year earlier. They were 1.93 billion daily, a slight increase of 5%. Taking into account Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, there were 3.59 billion users (+9%), of which 2.82 billion (+8%) daily.
Still on Facebook, there has been a decline in the United States with a million fewer users daily. This is the first time that the social network is down on this segment. There were 196 million US users a year ago, now there are 195 million. The slight increase in the various applications and the drop in users in the United States resulted in a fall in the action of around 22.89% to be at 249.05 dollars. Meta’s market cap shrunk by over $200 billion because of this.
The metaverse is expensive for Meta
On the finance side, Meta’s revenue was $33.67 billion in the last quarter of 2021, up 20% year-on-year. Net profit was $10.29 billion, down 8%. Earnings per share were $3.67, versus $3.88 previously. By comparison, analysts were expecting revenue of $33.4 billion and earnings per share of $3.84.
Full-year 2021 revenue was $117.93 billion (+37%), net profit was $39.37 billion (+35%) and earnings per share was 13.77 dollars (+36%).
Another element is the metaverse. Meta announces that it has recorded $10.19 billion in losses in 2021. This is explained by the colossal costs to set up this universe combining augmented reality and virtual reality headsets.
