Meta still seems in good shape. The figures for the first quarter of 2023 bear witness to this with profit margins and more users. At Facebook, the dean of the ecosystem, we are approaching 3 billion users with 2.99 billion active monthly users at the start of the year.
In the United States, as elsewhere, growth is good. A new trend is taking hold with consumption more focused on content than on keeping in touch with loved ones. After Instagram, Reels are starting to break into Facebook and engagement is on the rise. Internet users are posting less than before, especially when it comes to personal updates, but the time spent on Meta platforms watching videos is not decreasing!
The shift initiated a few months ago by Social Media is bearing fruit. Users come back to Facebook more often and video recommendations keep them a little longer. This translates to a 3% annual increase in Meta advertising revenue; grossing $28.6 billion in the first quarter of 2023.
Be careful, however, not to rejoice too quickly! The net income is not as good since you have to take into account the staff laid off in recent months and, above all, the almost continuous investments in virtual reality projects. Looking at the data closely, we can see that Reality Labs weighs heavily in research and development costs. The operating loss recorded amounted to 3.99 billion dollars over the period analyzed, against just 339 million dollars in revenue; i.e. an annual decrease of 50%.
More work…
According to Mark Zuckerberg, the past months have been good and the work on artificial intelligence is giving promising results. A central topic at the moment with ChatGPT taking center stage. Indeed, Meta automation is progressing and unsurprisingly the advertising business is doing the same. The question is therefore how much time (and money) Mark Zuckerberg will take to build his metaverse!