Meta reduced its profit by 41% in 2022, to 23.2 billion dollars. Despite this, it closed higher on the day: investors believed it would be worse.
The American giant of the social networks Meta , owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, among others, announced a collapse of its benefits of 41% in the financial year 2022, up to 23,200 million dollars.
Despite the bad figures, published at the close of the session on Wall Street, the technology shot up 18% in electronic operations in a first good reaction from investors, who had worse expectations, especially for the fourth quarter.
They had it coldly calculated
Meta , which had previously warned of weak accumulated results, had a slight decrease in annual turnover, of 1%, to 116,609 million, but was weighed down by a significant increase in costs, of 23%, to 87,665 million.
The company announced 11,000 layoffs in November and a charge of 4,610 million has been recorded in the year , related to these “restructuring efforts”, which also include the cancellation of office and project leases.
Like other technology companies, it was affected by inflation, the weakness of the advertising market, the increase in competitors and the normalization of the demand for digital entertainment, which increased extraordinarily after the outbreak of the pandemic.
Between October and December, the company earned 4,652 million (55% less) and billed 32,165 million (4% less), which is the third consecutive quarter with a decline in revenue, largely dependent on advertising.
record numbers
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive officer, noted that apps under the Meta umbrella continue to attract users, driven in large part by their artificial intelligence technology and “Reels” feature, to make short videos.
He further noted that Facebook has reached the milestone of 2 billion active users on average in December, up 4% year-on-year.
Zuckerberg dubbed this year the “year of efficiency” and said his priority is to make the company “stronger and leaner,” warning in his guidance for this year that it could “incur additional restructuring charges.”
Meta said it expects revenue for the first quarter between 26,000 and 28,500 million, which could mean a return to growth, and for the year as a whole it has revised downward its previous expectations for costs and capital expenditures, which seems to have encouraged to the market. EFE