MENLO PARK, Calif. - Facebook's daily active users dropped by roughly 1 million last quarter — a first in its history.Facebook parent company Meta posted a weak fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday due to a sharp increase in expenses.
Forecasting revenue for the current quarter — which fell below analysts’ expectations — also sent its stock plunging 24.5% on Thursday, erasing more than $220 billion in market value and marking the largest drop in history.The fourth-quarter earnings report also revealed a drop in its daily active users (DAUs) — or the total number of people that engage in some way with the product on a given day.
The social network’s daily active users fell from 1.93 billion in the third quarter of 2021 to 1.929 billion in the fourth, which a company spokesperson confirmed is the first quarter-to-quarter decline for the app in the company’s history.Facebook's daily active users rose 5% in 2021 compared to the year prior, while monthly active users increased by 4% in the same year-over-year period.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned of slowing revenue growth due in part to increased competition from TikTok and other rival platforms vying for people’s attention.