The Facebook parent company Meta struggled with a weak advertising environment in the second quarter. Sales and profits slip significantly. The management also gives a gloomy outlook for the current quarter.
After years of rapid growth, the Facebook group Meta is struggling with a decline in sales. It is the first since the company went public in 2012. In the second quarter, revenue fell by around one percent year-on-year to $28.8 billion. Net income fell 36 percent to $6.7 billion. This is also due to higher costs: Meta currently has around 83,500 employees, around a third more than a year ago.
The group, which includes services such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, is also skeptical for the current quarter and has a wide range of sales from 26 to 28.5 billion dollars – less than expected by analysts. This has priced in another decline.
CFO Dave Wehner cited the weakening of the online advertising market, which was already noticeable in the second quarter, in view of the economic uncertainty. Wehner is to take over the newly created position of strategy chief in November. The new chief financial officer will be Susan Li.
According to the figures, investors initially dropped the share by around five percent in after-hours trading, and the price later recovered to a minus of 1.50 percent. The number of users who access at least one app from the group every day rose from 2.87 to 2.88 billion within three months. Facebook saw an increase from 1.96 to 1.97 billion daily users.