Facebook, now Meta, had f 75,964 employees as of November 2022.
The company also reported 2.96 billion monthly active users (remember that Facebook Inc, also comprises other products like Instagram, while they affect the Facebook bottom line, Facebook doesn’t report how much of it is coming from each product and doesn’t tell us the users count of those platforms).
In 2022 Facebook, now Meta, generated $116,6 Billion in revenues, compared to almost $118 billion in 2021.
In 2022 Meta generated $23.2 billion in net income, compared to $39.3 billion in 2021.
In 2022 Meta’s business model was driven by advertising revenues, which represented 97.5% of the total revenues, similar to 2021.
As of 2022, Facebook spent over 30% ($35..3 billion) of its revenues on R&D. While it spent about 13% of its revenues on Sales and Marketing activities ($15.2 billion).
Advertising (over 97% of revenues): the company generated over $113.64 billion in advertising, primarily consisting of displaying ad products on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and third-party. As Facebook highlighted. In 2022, the number of ads delivered increased by 18%, as compared with approximately 34% in 2022. And the price per ad decreased by 16% in 2022. This means that Facebook pushed more ads through formats (like Reels) that it can’t monetize as easily as other formats.
Payments and other fees (less than 1% of total revenues): $809 million in revenues primarily consisted of the net fee received from developers using Payments infrastructure.
Reality Labs generated about $2.16 billion in revenues (almost 2% of the total revenues) from the delivery of consumer hardware products, such as Meta Quest (former Oculus), Facebook Portal, wearables, and related software and content. In 2021, Facebook started to report this segment separately compared to the advertising segment. In theory, this should become the central business unit for the company in the coming decade (this is a matter of survival for Facebook).
The ARPU, or average revenue per user, is a key metric to track the success of Facebook – now Meta – family of products. For instance, by the end of 2022, Meta’s ARPU worldwide was $10.86. While in US & Canada, it was $58.77; in Europe, it was $17.29; in Asia, $4.61 and in the rest of the world, it was $3.52.
Therefore, a user from the US or Canada as of 2022 is worth more than a user from Europe or the Asia-Pacific region. To make a comparison, a user from US and Canada, on average, is worth many times over than a user in the rest of the world!
Most advertising revenues still come from mobile and a leading product: Instagram.
Meta revenue slew down in 2022, primarily due to the slowdown in advertising revenue, and lack of ability in monetizing certain advertising formats.
Reality Labs sales were primarily driven by Meta Quest (former Oculus), which turned out to be a great VR gaming console. Will it be able to make the jump and become the primary device for content creation and consumption in virtual reality? That’s an open question.
Facebook, rebranded as Meta in 2021, is primarily owned by Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO. Zuckerberg keeps tight control over the ownership and decision-making of the company. Other large individual shareholders comprise former COO Sheryl Sandberg and co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Large institutional investors include BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity.
Facebook, the main product of Meta is an attention merchant. As such, its algorithms condense the attention of over 2.91 billion monthly active users as of June 2021. Meta generated $117.9 billion in revenues, in 2021, of which $114.9 billion from advertising (97.4% of the total revenues) and over $2.2 billion from Reality Labs (the augmented and virtual reality products arm).
ARPU, or average revenue per user, is a key metric for attention merchants like Facebook. It assesses the ability of the platform to monetize its users. For instance, by the end of 2022, Meta’s ARPU worldwide was $10.86. While in US & Canada, it was $58.77; in Europe, it was $17.29; in Asia, $4.61 and in the rest of the world, it was $3.52.
The ARPU, or average revenue per user, is a key metric to track the success of Facebook – now Meta – family of products. For instance, by the end of 2022, Meta’s ARPU worldwide was $10.86. While in US & Canada, it was $58.77; in Europe, it was $17.29; in Asia, $4.61 and in the rest of the world, it was $3.52.
As of September 2022, Facebook, rebranded as Meta, is a profitable company, generating $18.54B in net profits. Yet, if we look at its Reality Labs segment, which is in charge of building the Metaverse, it recorded a net loss of $9.44 billion in the first nine months of 2022.
Instagram makes money via visual advertising. Acquired by Facebook for a billion-dollar in 2012, today, Instagram is integrated into the overall Facebook (now rebranded as Meta) business strategy. In 2018, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company as Facebook pushed toward tighter integration of the two platforms. In 2022, Instagram is the most successful product still, in Meta’s portfolio.
Founded in 2009 by Brian Acton, Jan Koum WhatsApp is a messaging app acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19B. In 2018 WhatsApp rolled out customers’ interaction services, starting to make money on slow responses from companies. And Facebook also announced conversations on WhatsApp prompted by Facebook Ads.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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