Facebook's parent company Meta just he said its earnings for the second quarter of 2022. The news isn't good: It was another quarter of shrinking earnings.
Total revenue of $28,8 billion was down only one percent from the second quarter a year ago, but net income fell 36 percent to $6,7 billion.
Making nearly $7 billion in profit isn't a bad quarter for anyone, but the size of the year-over-year decline is pretty significant. According to Wall Street Journal, it's the first revenue drop for Meta/Facebook – so even though we're only talking about one percent, it's still notable.
Advertising revenue and Meta's “family of apps” are essentially flat year-over-year, and the Reality Labs (υπηρεσία για hardware όπως το Meta Quest και άλλες πρωτοβουλίες που σχετίζονται με το metaverse) actually increased 48 percent from the previous year to $452 million.
However, Reality Labs had a loss of $2,8 billion this quarter, which means 15 percent larger losses compared to the second quarter of 2021.
At this rate, it's very likely that Reality Labs will lose more than $10 billion compared to 2021 revenue.
Indeed, the company said it expects to see lower revenue from Reality Labs in the third quarter.
In June, Meta said it had 2,88 billion daily active users across its family of apps (which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) and 3,65 billion monthly active users. This represents an increase of 4 percent compared to a year ago.
The influx of new Facebook members was smaller, and average daily and monthly users increased by only 3% and 1% respectively.
All of the above, of course, may also be due to the transitional phase that the Meta/Facebook companies are going through, awaiting the creation of the metaverse.
But for some time now there have been indications that the platform of Facebook does not attract young people.
Either way, Facebook's CEO will have to convince investors to continue to support his vision.
