Facebook shares plunge 24% as slowing growth blindsides market
- by Olivia Ford
- in Money
- — Jul 26, 2018
The Menlo Park, Calif. -based company reported second-quarter earnings that bested analyst estimates, but the results fell short of projections for revenue and daily active users.
All of those problems are hitting amid a harsh truth for the company: Facebook, the social network with 2.23 billion active monthly users, can't grow forever.
Facebook shares closed about 3% high on Wednesday during regular trade hours but dropped as much as 24% in after-hours trade following a poor earnings report.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal prompted several apologies from Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and generated calls for users to desert Facebook, which has grown strongly since launching as a public company in 2012.
Revenue, fueled by mobile advertising sales, increased 42 per cent to US$13.2 billion in the quarter, Facebook said Wednesday in a statement.
Worldwide daily user growth for Facebook's namesake service slid for its sixth straight quarter, bringing it to almost 1.5 billion users in the second quarter. But the revenue of $13.2 billion missed Wall Street estimates of $13.4 billion.
Here is one interesting figure; Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is still stuck at 241 million monthly U.S. & Canada users, and it is the same figure from the last quarter.
Selling pressure accelerated when chief financial officer David Wehner warned in a call with analysts of a weaker outlook in the coming quarter. The quarter was also marked by Europe's implementation of strict new data laws, which Facebook said led to fewer daily visitors in that region. Overall, average daily users increased 11 per cent from the period a year earlier.
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Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser, who has a sell rating on the stock, says there are limits to growth in digital advertising, even for Facebook.
The disappointing numbers highlight the bind the company is in while it attempts to please both growth-hungry investors and a disillusioned userbase following a chain of scandals.
After the General Data Protection Regulation went into effect in Europe, Facebook started asking people to check their privacy settings and make sure they wanted to share certain kinds of data.
Gene Munster, a venture capitalist at Loup Ventures, said in an email that Facebook is "entering a new period" where declining user growth will translate to slower revenue growth. Facebook disrupted some business by putting in place new rules to get all political advertisers to verify their identities.
Still, Zuckerberg assured investors that Facebook continues to see growth on its core platform, as well as its other properties, which include Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Wehner said the "deceleration", as he termed it, is "a combination of factors", including the rising USA dollar; what Wehner called the company's newfound "focus on growing engaging new experiences like Stories and promoting of those; giving greater controls to users of the service people who use service for privacy".
Facebook forecast similar increases for the second half of the year, also citing spending on video content and marketing.
"The company has a track record of resetting revenue growth and expense expectations only to turn around and exceed those expectations the following quarter", Munster wrote.
