Shares plunged more than 20% in overtime trading as Facebook’s Meta announced its fourth-quarter earnings last year, far below market expectations on the 2nd (local time).
Facebook’s parent company “Meta” released its fourth-quarter earnings 2021 and forecasts for the first quarter of this year after the closing of the New York stock market. Net profit in the fourth quarter of last year was $12.29 billion, down 8% from $11.22 billion a year earlier. Net profit per share was $3.67, below Wall Street expectations.
Sales in the fourth quarter rose 20% year-on-year to $33.67 billion, but profits fell unusually as spending costs soared, AP reported.
On top of that, the annual net loss of “Reality Labs,” an augmented and virtual reality (AR) business sector centered on meta, reached $10.2 billion, further widening the deficit from the previous year’s loss ($6.6 trillion).
One of the major performance indicators, the daily active user (DAU), declined for the first time in history. The number of DAUs in the fourth quarter was 1.93 billion, down slightly from the same period last year, economic media CNBC reported.
Meta said Apple’s change in the iPhone’s personal information software disrupted online advertising sales activities and was hit by macroeconomic factors such as the collapse of the global supply chain.
Meta predicted that it would be difficult in the first quarter of this year. Meta’s sales estimate for the first quarter was $27 billion to $29 billion, less than the Wall Street forecast ($30.15 billion).
Meta shares plunged more than 20% in overtime trading after the earnings announcement.
