[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, saw its stock price surge more than 20% on the 27th (local time) as the daily active user (DAU) count, which led to a sharp decline in its stock price this year, rebounded in the first quarter (January to March).
According to Bloomberg and other sources, Meta announced in its first-quarter earnings report that the daily active users of its main platform, Facebook, increased by 31 million compared to the previous quarter, reaching 1.96 billion during January to March. This exceeded the market expectation of 1.94 billion.
Earlier, in February, Meta reported that its daily active users had decreased by 1 million compared to the previous quarter for the first time. At that time, concerns arose over users migrating to competitors like China's TikTok, and changes in privacy regulations by Apple and Google, which prevented sharing personal mobile activity data with third parties, inevitably impacting advertising revenue and raising fears of deteriorating earnings. Since then, Meta's stock price has plummeted by more than 40%.
Following the earnings announcement on this day, Meta's stock price surged over 20% in after-hours trading. During regular trading hours, it closed at $174.95 (approximately 221,300 KRW), down 3.32% from the previous day, but the market responded positively to the increase in daily active users revealed after the market closed.
However, the situation is not yet reassuring. Meta's first-quarter revenue was $27.9 billion, up 6.6% year-over-year, but below the market forecast of $28.3 billion. Analysts noted that this single-digit revenue growth rate is the first since Meta's IPO in 2012, attributing the impact to advertising revenue affected by Apple's privacy policy changes.
Meta projected second-quarter revenue between $28 billion and $30 billion. While the market predicted Meta's second-quarter revenue to reach $30.7 billion, Meta explained that the impact of Russia's airstrikes on Ukraine is affecting its revenue. Considering this revenue situation, Meta has scaled back its investment plans for this year, lowering its spending target from the original maximum of $95 billion to between $87 billion and $92 billion.
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