Has Facebook Had Its Day?
Facebook users have fallen for the first time in 18 years. Facebooks own figures show that its daily active users have fallen from 1.930bn to 1.929 in three months, the first time Facebook has seen a decrease in its history.
Facebooks parent company Meta, stated that the fall is down to competitor sites such as TikTok and YouTube. They have also commented that advertisers have cut spending on Facebook.
Metas shares dropped by more than 20% in afterhours trading New York, wiping £147.5bn off the company’s value.
Other social media platforms have also seen their stock market values fall sharply including Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg commented that sales growth has been hurt by younger audiences switching to rival platforms.
Meta has also been hit by privacy changes on Apples operating system which has impacted their digital advertising platform. These changes have made it harder for brands to target their advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Metas financial officer Dave Wehner has said this could have an impact of 10 billion dollars this year alone.
Facebook has been making investments into videos in a bid to compete with TikTok which is owned by Chinese tech giant Byte Dance.
Mr. Zuckerberg said he was confident the investments in video and virtual reality would pay off, just as previous bets on mobile advertising and Instagram stories have.
James Clayton, a North American technology reporter stated “…Facebook has always been a platform that grows, for every quarter its global numbers have increased, but in the past couple of years growth has stalled in Europe and in the US. Facebook isn’t as popular with the younger generation as it was, and the main reason for this is TikTok. Investors have worries such as the name change to Meta to focus on the Metaverse, but it is nowhere near to that yet, and it is pumping millions of dollars trying to create one, but it is a huge risk…”
James Claytons ends by saying “…maybe Facebook should buy TikTok to solve its issues…”