Facebook monthly users approach 3 billion worldwide
Photo. AP/Tony Avelar.
The financial results of the first quarter of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, proved to be above the forecasts of analysts and the investing public, as reported by moneyreview.gr. Meanwhile, Meta's stock price rose 15% after the announcement and an unexpected rebound in digital ad sales, which Bloomberg reports gives it time to pour capital into high-stakes innovations like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Not coincidentally, Meta announced that monthly Facebook users have reached 3 billion worldwide. “Our work with artificial intelligence is driving good results in our apps and our business,” said Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. “We're also becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster and be in a stronger position to deliver on our long-term vision.”
Specifically, the Meta platform announced earnings of $5.71 billion, or $2.20 per share, for the January-March period. They were down 19% from $7.47 billion, or $2.72 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 3% to $28.65 billion from $27.91 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $2.02 per share on revenue of $27.67 billion. Meanwhile, it is also at risk of being fined and banned from using insecure contractual clauses to support transatlantic data transfers as a legal dispute escalates, which has recently forced the social networking giant to threaten to withdraw completely from the European Union. At this juncture, the Irish Data Protection Commission, the main monitoring body for the protection of privacy in the E.U. and head of Meta's Facebook, will announce the decision next month, the company said. The Irish ruling will come amid a legal vacuum for thousands of companies from 2020 onwards, when the EU's highest court canceled the EU agreement – US on such data flows due to fears of spying on EU user data
