Meta has bucked the trend for big tech companies Q4 2022 earnings, beating analyst expectations with growing revenue and ad impressions.
Meta generated US$32.17 billion (AU$45.11 billion) of revenue, while analysts had predicted that the company would only manage US$31.53 billion (AU$44.21 billion).
The number of daily active users across all Meta’s platforms jumped 5 per cent year-on-year to 2.96 billion. The number of daily active users on Facebook climbed 4 per cent to a nice, round 2 billion.
The overall number of ad impressions across Meta’s family of apps in Q4 increased by almost a quarter year-on-year. Across the whole year, ad impressions jumped by 18 per cent. However, the average price of an ad in the final quarter dropped by 22 per cent year-on-year. Across the whole of 2022, the average ad price dropped by 16 per cent.
“Our community continues to grow and I’m pleased with the strong engagement across our apps. Facebook just reached the milestone of 2 billion daily actives,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and CEO.
“The progress we’re making on our AI discovery engine and Reels are major drivers of this. Beyond this, our management theme for 2023 is the ‘Year of Efficiency’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organisation.”
The elephant in the room, of course, is that Meta laid off 11,000 workers around the world in November. At the end of December, the company’s headcount stood at just over 86,000, this number was up by 20 per cent over the year before and includes “a substantial majority” of the laid-off workers.
Zuck euphemistically saying that Meta is becoming a “stronger and more nimble organisation” will be heartening for investors, but not for staff.
However, the company’s Reality Labs division, which is focused on building the metaverse and virtual reality products, saw its losses widen again.
In the three months ending in December, the division lost a whopping US$4.28 billion (AU$6 billion) up from US$3.3 billion in the three months ending in December 2021. Across the whole year, Reality Labs burned through US$13.7 billion (AU$19.20 billion), up from US$10.1 billion (AU$14.15 billion) in 2021.
In its Q3 results, Meta did say that Reality Labs will continue to lose money and increasing amounts of it year-over-year and shareholders became so enraged that they held an intervention with Zuckerberg to discuss.
With analysts expecting ad revenues to further decline, plus a general global recession around the corner, it had seemed as though Facebook was about to throw the baby out with the bathwater to try and make the metaverse happen. However, these results perhaps show that not all hope has been lost for those over at 1 Hacker Way.
