Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc shares plunged 20 percent late on Wednesday as the social media company missed on Wall Street earnings estimates and posted a weaker-than-expected forecast.
Meta said it faced hits from Apple Inc’s privacy changes to its operating system, which have made it harder for brands to target and measure their ads on Facebook and Instagram, and from macroeconomic issues like supply-chain disruptions.
The after-hours slump in Meta shares vaporized US$200 billion worth of its market value, with another US$15 billion in value lost from peers Twitter Inc, Snap Inc and Pinterest Inc.
Shares of Alphabet Inc, which posted record quarterly sales that topped expectations on Tuesday, were down 1.3 percent.
Meta, which has the second-largest digital ad platform in the world after Google, had previously warned its advertising business faced “significant uncertainty” in the fourth quarter.
The company forecast first-quarter revenue in the range of US$27 billion to US$29 billion. Analysts were expecting US$30.15 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Apple’s changes to its operating software give users the preference to allow tracking of their activity online, making it harder for advertisers who rely on data to develop new products and know their market.
The company’s total revenue, the bulk of which comes from ad sales, rose to US$33.67 billion in the fourth quarter from US$28.07 billion a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates of US$33.40 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Net loss from Meta’s Reality Labs, the company’s augmented and virtual reality business, was US$10.2 billion for the full year 2021, compared with a US$6.6 billion loss the previous year. It was the first time the company had broken out this segment in its results.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously warned that the company’s investment in this area would reduce last year’s operating profit by US$10 billion and would not be profitable “any time in the near future.”
The company said on Wednesday it would this year change its stock ticker to “META,” the latest step in its rebranding to focus on the metaverse, a futuristic idea of virtual environments where users can work, socialize and play.
The tech giant, which changed its name in October last year to reflect its metaverse aims, is betting the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile Internet. It did not comment on the price of a deal with Roundhill Investments, which said last month it would stop using the symbol for its Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF.
Meta’s rebranding comes at a time of increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators over allegations of anticompetitive conduct and over the impacts of how it handles harmful or misleading content across its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
“If you’re putting billions up front and not really expecting return for years, shareholders are going to be hesitant,” ABI Research analyst Eric Abbruzzese said, referring to the metaverse costs.
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