Facebook parent Meta’s quarterly earnings report on Wednesday revealed a startling statistic: For the first time, the company’s growth is stagnating around the world.
User growth on the Facebook app — a constant since it created its viral social network in 2004 — fell by about half a million users in the first three months of 2021, to 1.93 billion users logging in each day. The loss was greatest in Africa and Latin America, suggesting that the company’s product is saturated globally — and that its long quest to add as many users as possible has peaked.
Facebook also showed for the first time on Wednesday what a tiny fraction of revenue is earned from its investment in virtual and augmented reality hardware, a suite of products the company dubs the metaverse. ...
I'd hate for this to be a temporary setback. Or used as an excuse to lighten up on antitrust actions agaisnt the firm.
Note that the story here is of global user declines. Facebook's growth in the US and Canda stopped in 2018, as the Washington Post links within this article, see: "Facebook revenue rises less than expected as user growth stagnates" (2018-10-30)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/30/facebook-revenue-rises-less-than-expected-user-growth-stagnates/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/facebook-earnings-meta/
Paywall / GDPR wall: https://archive.is/UYYum
#Facebook #SocialMedia #Monopoly #MarkZuckerberg #QuarterlyEarnings