Meta had a record quarter. Profits, which reached $11.58 billion (equivalent to almost 11 billion euros), more than doubled compared to the previous year. Sales and profits have never been higher.
This signals that the company’s revenue model, which focuses on advertising sales, is still pretty solid. After 2021 was the company’s best year ever due to the coronavirus pandemic, there was a decline last year. The technology sector was also negatively affected by rising inflation and the uncertain economic situation.
Major layoffs
This situation caused Meta to undergo its biggest restructuring in recent years last year. More than 21,000 employees have been laid off since November last year. At its peak, Meta employed 86,000 people.
While presenting current record figures, the group warned of what to expect in the future: The turbulent economic situation has made 2024 sales forecasts “uncertain”. This caused the price of Meta shares to fall after the end of normal trading, called the after-hours period.
What doesn’t help is that the company also announced that it will invest billions of dollars in various projects in the coming years. This includes network infrastructure such as data centers, and the company continues to invest heavily in Reality Labs, which works on metadata. This sector is experiencing high losses: the equivalent of 10.3 billion euros this year alone.
Twitter alternative
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg also addressed the situation with Threads, the app the company launched earlier this year as an alternative to X, formerly Twitter. Following Elon Musk’s takeover, there is great interest in alternatives to the platform.
According to Zuckerberg, Threads has nearly 100 million monthly active users. This makes the app several times smaller than Instagram or Facebook, but Zuckerberg believes Threads could also have a billion users within a few years.
Alphabet, the parent company of the other advertising giant Google, published the figures yesterday. Sales and profits rose sharply there too, although growth was not as strong as at Meta.
Source: NOS
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
