2022 has been a bad year for Meta, which, in addition to bad macro conditions, has been impacted by changes Apple has made to iOS that have reduced ad targeting options. What’s more, its flagship products, Facebook and Instagram, still work. face to the competition from TikTok. And finally, billions of dollars are regularly allocated to the development of metaverse and augmented reality products. As a result, the stock market crashed. However, 2023 has been a relatively good start for Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Decided to return things to main, the latter is expanding its ability to buy back its own shares, i.e. technique which can help support the value of these shares. “We repurchased our $6.91 billion and $27.93 billion of our Class A common stock in the fourth quarter and 2022 for all of 2022, respectively. As of December 31, 2022, we had $10.87 billion available and eligible for redemption. We also announced today a $40 billion increase in our share buyback authority.on in the Meta quarterly results presentation.
Meta reassures investors
In addition to buying back shares, Meta is also trying to reassure investors. Having already laid off 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce (a restructuring that cost $4.2 billion), the company will continue to cut its costs. “We are working on simplifying our organizational structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying artificial intelligence tools to help our engineers be more productive,” said Mark Zuckerberg, according to Bloomberg. “We can do even more to improve our productivity, speed and cost structure.” According to Meta’s CEO, 2023 will be a year of efficiency for the company. Its financial results were also less disappointing than expected. And as a result, the stock market rose 24% on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. A significant increase, which was blown by a small breeze of optimism in tech American. Note the strong contrast between Meta and Snap’s quarterly results, which has worried investors. “Demand for ads hasn’t really improved, but it hasn’t significantly worsened either,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel recently explained. In the final quarter of 2022, Meta’s revenue was $32.2 billion, down 4% year-over-year (third consecutive decline). However, the group beat analysts’ forecasts. And according to some forecasts, the Meta may even return to growth after the first quarter of 2023. As for the number of users, the Facebook app just passed 2 billion daily users, or 70. millions over a year ago.
Meta continues to fight TikTok
Otherwise, in the coming months in regards to social media, Facebook and Instagram Meta will bet even more heavily on its response to TikTok. On the one hand, content will increasingly be recommended by AI rather than based on the accounts the user has chosen to follow. And the group should also bet on short TikTok-style videos called Reels. “Facebook and Instagram are no longer organized solely around the people and accounts you follow to show you more and more relevant content recommended by our AI systems,” Mark Zuckerberg told TechCrunch. “And that covers all content formats, which makes our services unique, but we’re especially focused on short videos since Reels is growing so fast.”
