Facebook, one of the applications with the highest number of users, has been having a hard time recently due to privacy concerns. However, it turned out that something was going well in practice. The number of daily active users of Facebook increased by 4 percent on an annual basis as of December last year, reaching 2 billion.
The number of people using Facebook on a daily basis reached an average of two billion in December 2023, or about a quarter of the world’s population. The larger-than-expected growth helped create a fresh air of optimism about the company, which was under pressure from rising costs and falling ad sales.
Shares of parent company Meta rose more than 15 percent after the close, as boss Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 a “productivity year.” Zuckerberg pointed out that after years of double-digit growth, there is a new period for the company, whose revenues fell for the first time in its history in 2022, and said, “We do not expect this to continue, but I think it will not be the same as before.”
Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, announced a major restructuring last year, including shrinking office space and laying off 11,000 people, or about 13 percent of its staff. In the three months to December, the firm said revenue was $32.2 billion, down 4 percent year on year. However, this was better than many analysts expected. Meta said the number of people who are active every day across all of its apps has increased by 5 percent year over year.
Zuckerberg explained that the company is making progress with its video product, Reels, which it focuses on while facing rivals like TikTok, which is particularly popular with younger users.