Almost 20 years after its release, Facebook reached 2 billion daily active users after adding 16 million users last quarter. Facebook joins WhatsApp among the Meta-owned platforms to reach these digits.
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This picture taken on December 18, 2018 shows Myanmar youths browsing their Facebook page at an internet shop in Yangon. - Facebook has removed hundreds of additional pages and accounts in Myanmar with hidden links to the military, the platform said on December 19, as the company scrambles to respond to criticism over failures to control hate speech and misinformation.
This picture taken on December 18, 2018 shows Myanmar youths browsing their Facebook page at an internet shop in Yangon. - Facebook has removed hundreds of additional pages and accounts in Myanmar with hidden links to the military, the platform said on December 19, as the company scrambles to respond to criticism over failures to control hate speech and misinformation.
Reaching 2 Billion Users
Facebook proves that the social network is still growing despite several competitors joining the industry in the past few years. According to Variety, Facebook reported 2 billion daily active users, which marks the first time the social network to reach this goal.
This shows that despite the economic uncertainty and several cuts to its business for the past quarters, the biggest source of ad revenue of the company is still growing in the industry. Adding to this, Meta garnered $32.2 billion in revenue for the last quarter of 2022, downing to 4% from last year.
Meanwhile, net income decreased by 55% to $4.65 billion, as the costs grew 22% from last year. This was a better outcome than Meta's predictions since the sales estimate for the fourth quarter earnings was as low as 10%.
With this, Meta's stocks increased by more than 18% in after-hours training after reporting better results than the investors' predictions as they topped the lowered expectations of Wall Street. CNBC reported that the company also announced that it will be increasing $40 billion in its stock buyback program.
Previously, Meta bought back about $28 billion in stock last year. The company started buying back shares all the way from 2017.
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Meta's division to oversee the VR, AR, and metaverse projects Reality Labs reported a $4.2 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2022, which totals $14 billion for the whole year. Despite this, Meta Chief Financial Officer stated that the company will be continuing to invest in this area, as they see significant long-term opportunities in this matter.
This area potentially contributed to Meta's revenue slowdown for the year 2022. But Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg explained, "There are gonna be some areas that are going to be very rapidly growing, or that are very, kind of, future investments that we want to make."
The CEO described the management theme for 2023 as the "Year of Efficiency" as they bounced back to focus on becoming a stronger company this year.
Meta's Plans
Zuckerberg also explained during the call with analysts that the company will continue to make cuts as they prioritize efficiency in these trying times. He stated, "We're going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren't performing or may no longer be as crucial."
Based on a report from Engadget, the company revealed its plans to prioritize Generative AI for Meta in the year ahead, which he described as an extremely exciting new area that contains different applications. Meta's goal is to build on its research as they aim to become a leader in Generative AI.
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