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Facebook, in crisis: it loses users for the first time in its history and Meta collapses on Wall Street

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, lost this Wednesday more than 20% of its market valuedespite presenting accounts that reflect a rise in profits of 35% in 2021.

However, the company has experienced a drop in growth in recent months and has poor forecasts for 2022.

The Meta accounts – the new name with which the company previously known as Facebook was baptized last October – indicate that in its 2021 fiscal year as a whole it obtained net profits of $39.37 billion35% higher than those achieved in the previous year.

In the past twelve months, the company led by Mark Zuckerberg entered 117,929 million dollars, the vast majority from the sale of advertising spaceand well above the 85,965 invoiced during 2020.

For their part, Meta shareholders pocketed $13.77 per titlecompared to 10.09 a year ago.

Facebook changed its name to “Meta” in a corporate image wash. AFP Photo

Between October and December, the period in which Wall Street analysts paid the most attention today, Meta invoiced 33,671 million dollars, 20% more than in the same period of 2020, but the 38% increase in costs caused the net profit of the company remain at 10,285 million.

These 10,285 represent 8% less than the earnings of the fourth quarter of 2020 and are below the estimates that analysts had made, which, together with the weak future projections, sowed panic among investors and triggered the sale of shares. in the stock market.

At some point on Wednesday afternoon, the company’s shares they left 22% of its valueup to $252.40 per share.

This drop entailed a loss in market capitalization of $200 billion for a company, Meta, which last June exceeded a billion dollars in market value for the first time.

Although Meta was the most affected, the panic spread to other companies in the social media sector such as Twitter, Pinterest and Snap, which also saw their share prices fall.

Facebook: future plans

Meta offices, in Menlo Park, California.  Reuters Photo

Meta offices, in Menlo Park, California. Reuters Photo

Regarding future forecasts, the company recognized when presenting the accounts that it faces serious challenges that could affect your benefitssuch as the implementation of more restrictive privacy measures on Apple iPhone phones, high inflation and problems in the global supply chain.

Over the past twelve months, the firm based in Menlo Park (California, USA) saw an increase in the number of Internet users using its services, which now reaches 1.93 billion active daily users (that is, they connect at least once a day).

This figure is 5% higher than that registered in December 2020.

If we also take into account those users who connect at least once a month, the number rises to 2,910 millionwhich means that more than a third of humanity is connected to one of the Meta platforms.

The company, which until October last year was called Facebook, owns, in addition to the social network, the popular applications Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as the brand of Oculus augmented reality products.

Except for Oculus, which sells augmented reality headsets and apps for them, the main source of revenue for all other platforms is online advertising.

“I am proud of the progress we made last year in many important growth areas like commerce and virtual reality. We will continue to invest in these priorities in 2022 as we we work to build the metaverseZuckerberg pointed out when presenting the accounts, referring to his project to create a world of augmented reality.

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