In a rare event, Facebook Inc. reported a drop in daily users in the fourth fiscal quarter in its latest report. The bucket of cold water, also accompanied by a 5% drop in net profit compared to the same period last year, caused the shares of the giant Meta (formerly Facebook Inc.) to plummet 20% in an instant.
Apparently, the big name change is not enough to rebuild Facebook's morale against the competition. In North America alone, the main source of earnings for Mark Zuckerberg's original social network, the decrease in the number of daily users reached 1 million.
Furthermore, user growth on Meta's three platforms, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was considered only stable. Instagram user numbers are not revealed, but daily users across all apps rose to 2.82, adding just 10 million users in the quarter.
Of course, Meta is still extremely profitable. Last year alone it made a profit of US$ 40 billion, mainly from advertising. But the division responsible for metaverse-related initiatives, Reality Labs (from Quest and upcoming VRs) is losing billions. Last year there were US$ 10.2 billion less, with revenue of US$ 2.3 billion. Still, Zuckerberg has made it clear that he intends to increase investment in Reality Labs in the coming years, as he sees a combination of AR and VR as the next big computing platform.
