After the publication of the latest financial report, Facebook shares fell by more than 5%, despite the fact that the social network was once again able to demonstrate better results than expected in terms of both revenue and profit. The fact is that investors were alarmed by the figures for users: in the US, their number has almost not changed, but in Europe there was an outflow. This is quite disturbing news, because people from North America generate ARPU (average income per subscriber), which exceeds the values of other regions by five times.
It is quite obvious that Facebook is the world's main social network, which, according to recent data, is used by 1.908 billion (DAU) people every day. It is already quite difficult to grow further: according to the results of the second quarter, the DAU indicator increased by 6.9% y/y. While MAU (the number of unique users per month) grew by 7.2% y/y. In the first quarter, the growth was 9.6% y/y. In the future, revenue growth will depend even more on the advertising policy of the platform.
In the second quarter, revenue increased by 56% y/y, to $29.08 billion. Wall Street expected a figure of $27.89 billion. This was due to an increase in ARPU in general by 43% y/y, to $10.12: firms want to recapture losses associated with the pandemic and do not spare money for advertising campaigns. Most likely, this is a temporary phenomenon and the growth rate will significantly decrease in the coming quarters. ARPU for American users grew even more-by 45% y/y, to $53.01. ARPU outside of North America and Europe is equal to $4.16, and it is also growing at a slower pace – 39% y/y. Facebook will need a lot of time to equalize cash receipts and increase the share of these countries in total revenue.