Daily Facebook Users Increase as Shares Bump Up 19%

• Meta, Facebook’s parent company reports that its active users of the leading social media platform increased in the first three months of the year. 

• Mark Zuckerberg, however, warned that Facebook is experiencing its slowest growth in a decade.

• The increase in Facebook users has pushed the value of the company’s stocks up by 19%.

The number of daily active Facebook users has grown to about 1.96 billion from 1.93 billion in the first three months of this year. This was announced by Facebook’s parent company Meta in a report revealing its first-quarter earnings.

In February, Facebook recorded a decrease in the number of daily active users for the first time since its creation. The decrease led to a 26% decline in the social network’s stock.

The latest rise has, however, pushed the stocks up by over 19% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.

According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, some of the challenges Facebook is facing currently include Apple’s privacy rules and the war between Russia and Ukraine. In March, Russia placed a ban on Facebook and Instagram to prevent the spread of false information regarding the war.

The social media giant is also facing more competition in online Ads from new platforms like Tiktok and Amazon. All these have led to Meta reporting the slowest increase in revenue in a decade. 

Mark Zuckerberg also said that although Meta is investing greatly in AI and virtual reality for its next evolutionary phase, the company still relies on Facebook, Instagram and other businesses to generate revenue to fund its investment costs.

Read also: Meta to Launch Metaverse Store Ahead of Virtual World Takeoff

Overall, Meta recorded profit of about $7.46bn in the first quarter. Although the profits were more than analysts predicted, the value is down 20% when compared with corresponding profits from previous years. 

Competitors, regulations, and changes in social media users’ behaviours have been threatening to affect Meta’s Ads revenue. Nevertheless, a lot of advertisers are still making use of Facebook and Instagram to gain a wider reach.

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