Meta, formerly known as Facebook, witnessed a 20% drop in its shares price after reporting its fourth-quarter earnings missed estimates, leaving its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg at risk of losing $24 billion from his personal fortune, Bloomberg reported.
The drop in Meta's share price wiped around $200 billion off the company's stock market value. And shares in other social media platforms, including Twitter, Snap and Pinterest, also dropped sharply in extended trading.
Although Meta’s revenues were slightly higher than expected at $33.67bn for the last quarter, the conglomerate reported a slightly lower number of daily active users – 1.92 billion compared to 1.93 billion in the previous quarter.
Meta also warned of slowing revenue growth in the face of competition from competitors like TikTok and YouTube, while advertisers are also cutting spending.
The firm also unveiled for the first time the amount it spent so far on its new strategy. The firm’s Reality Labs division, which develops VR goggles, smart glasses and other yet-to-be-released gadgets spent more than $10 billion last year. The spending dragged down quarterly profits by 8%, and Zuckerberg has suggested that there is much more spending to come.
According to Bloomberg, this drop in Meta's shares might push Zuckerberg outside the list of the Top 10 richest people in the world for the first time since July 2015 with his net worth dropping to $97 billion in Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
