Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot to the metaverse is beginning to become more important than ever, as his company’s financial momentum in the real world continued to sputter in the first quarter of 2022. While Meta’s revenue and user base remained on an upward trajectory during the period, its increases were below the pace then-Facebook set in previous years. (Adweek)
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, reported profit of $7.5 billion for the first quarter, down 21 percent from a year earlier. Revenue rose 7 percent to $27.9 billion. (NYT)
Facebook daily active users (DAU), a key metric for advertisers, were 1.96 billion. Monthly active users came in at 2.94 billion. (Reuters)
It’s clear that, in the short term, Zuckerberg believes that copying TikTok will revive its growth. He said Wednesday that the company’s short-form video product, Reels, accounted for 20 percent of time spent on Instagram—and that video consumption was already more than half the time spent on Facebook. Meta is early in monetizing Reels with ads, but it is following the same playbook Zuckerberg used to successfully copy Snapchat’s Stories feature. (The Verge)
Zuckerberg said in a conference call with analysts that the revenue acceleration Meta saw during the pandemic has now tapered off—and the company will now “slow the pace of some of our investments” so it can continue to grow profits. This mainly refers to Meta’s Reality Labs segment, which encompasses its futuristic “metaverse” project. (AP)