The American tech group Meta Platforms has recorded a decline in its annual turnover for the first time since its IPO in 2012. Facebook’s parent company recorded a turnover of 116.1 billion dollars (about 105.4 billion euros) in 2022, about 1 percent less than the year before. This is evident from figures presented by the company from California on Tuesday, international news agencies report.
Still, Meta’s share of trading soared nearly 18 percent after the US stock market closed on favorable forecasts from the company for its revenue in the first quarter of this year. At $26 to $28.5 billion, they were higher than the $27.1 billion analysts had expected. Meta, a giant in the digital advertising market, foresees a recovery in that market in the first quarter.
The tech group, which also includes Instagram and the messaging service WhatsApp, has had a difficult year. Many companies have cut their digital advertising budgets due to macroeconomic concerns. Competitors such as the Chinese TikTok attracted younger users. Meta’s stock lost nearly two-thirds of its value by 2022. In November, the company laid off 11,000 employees, about 13 percent of its workforce.
Corona pandemic
CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributes this wave of layoffs to the strong growth in the workforce during the corona pandemic, when people were at home and spent more time on social media. With the end of lockdowns, that turnover growth also came to an end.
For the fourth quarter, Meta reported a profit of $4.65 billion – a 55 percent decline from the same period in 2021. That decline was largely due to costs of $4.2 billion related to the reorganization especially the layoffs. It was Meta’s third consecutive quarter of earnings decline.