[ad_1]
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has put the future of his company in jeopardy. in an immersive online world known as the metaverse. On Wednesday, the company showed that it is still moving forward with that transformation.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, reported profit $7.5 billion in the first quarter, down 21 percent from the previous year. Revenue rose 7 percent to $27.9 billion. Wall Street analysts had forecast a profit of $7.1 billion on revenue of $28.2 billion.
Results followed Meta dismal financial report in February, when the company also reports falling profits and slowing user growth. The next day, Meta’s stock dropped 26 percent, and its market cap dropped more than $230 billion in the company’s biggest one-day wipeout ever.
The two quarters were the company’s first back-to-back profit declines in more than a decade, a sign of the difficulties it faced as it changed course. While Meta spends heavily on metaverse-related products like virtual reality glasses, it’s far from certain whether people will want to buy such gadgets. At the same time, the company’s core social networking apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, are facing challenges. New user growth has slowed, and competition from competitors like Chinese-owned video site TikTok is increasing.
In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg said he was sticking to the metaverse plan. We remain confident in the long-term opportunities and growth that our product roadmap will pave the way for.”
Meta’s core business has also been in digital advertising. Damaged by Apple’s decision Allowing iPhone users to disable apps that monitor their online activities. This change has impacted Meta’s ability to target ads to people on iPhones. Google has also discussed introducing similar privacy changes to its mobile products that could further impact Meta’s advertising business.
Analysts said they banned Facebook and Instagram after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March, resulting in the loss of tens of millions of users. Earlier, Facebook announced that it would start tagging Russian state-sponsored media and relax its hate speech policies for Ukrainian users.
“Meta is facing Category 5 hurricane headwinds, from engagement to advertising to growth,” said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities. “There is a feeling that the company is still unable to get a handle on all the changes to the iPhone or loss of users.”
[ad_2]
Source link