Facebook parent
Meta Platforms Inc.
startled investors with a sharper-than-expected decline in profits and a gloomy outlook in its first earnings report since Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg
outlined a pivot to the metaverse.
Facebook shares plunged after the results were announced, dropping more than 20%. If shares dropped that much when trading opens on Thursday, it would wipe more than $175 billion from the tech giant’s market capitalization.
The company said it expected revenue growth to slow because users were spending less time on its more lucrative services. Facebook also cited inflation as a weight on advertiser spending. It lost about a million daily users globally and stagnated in the U.S. and Canada, two of the company’s most profitable markets, the results show.
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