Facebook Reaches 3 Billion Users, as Meta Sees Best Quarterly Results Since 2021

A person watches on a smartphone Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiling the META logo in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2021. (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)

Facebook reached over 3 billion monthly active users for the first time, according to Meta’s latest quarterly report.

Meta made the announcement on July 26 in its second quarterly (pdf) report.

The 3 billion-user milestone is seen as an achievement for the company’s social media platform and former corporate namesake.

Facebook user growth has generally remained stagnant over the past few years, as its monthly user base grew by 3 percent in the quarter from the same period last year.

Although Facebook has declined in popularity among younger people, according to a Pew Research Center study, the platform is still the world’s largest social network.

Facebook Dominates the Social Media Sphere

Meanwhile, Meta’s universe of apps, which include WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads, grew 6 percent in the second quarter, to about 3.88 billion monthly total active users, or almost half of the world population.

In recent months, the social media firm has been putting an emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI) after the disappointing initial results of the Metaverse.

Mr. Zuckerberg is placing his bets on Threads, a text-based app that appears to be an imitation of Twitter, and on the company’s Llama 2 large language model.

Facebook currently has 2.064 billion daily active users, up from 2.037 billion in the first quarter, according to the report.

That comes after Facebook reported its first quarterly decline in its history of daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Meta had a successful second quarter, with 11 percent growth in revenue worth $32 billion, most of it from advertising, and a 16 percent improvement in net income, with $7.8 billion in earnings.

“I think we have the most exciting roadmap ahead that I’ve seen in a while,” Mr. Zuckerberg said, after the last few earnings calls saw a disappointing decline in revenue.

“We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate, and more importantly, we’re seeing more people coming back daily than I expected,” he said.

Zuckerberg Touts the Success of the Threads Launch

Much of the recent growth could be attributed in part to Reels, a feature that closely resembles TikTok on Instagram and Facebook.

Reels reportedly get 200 billion plays per day across Meta’s series of apps, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr. Zuckerberg also touted Threads, which is tied in with Instagram, claiming that the new app doing quite well.

Threads hit 100 million users in the first five days, but regular use has since dropped off after the initial rush.

A report last week by analytics firm Similarweb indicated Threads usage had already dropped by half from its initial surge and that daily active users had dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million within a week.

“I’m very optimistic about how the Threads community is coming together,” the Meta CEO wrote on Threads.

Not every user was expected to become dedicated Threads fans, said Mr. Zuckerberg, but he claimed that “tens of millions of people come back daily,” in a post. “That’s way ahead of what we expected,” he explained.

“The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that then we’ll focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG, Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too,” he added.

Metaverse Loses Money as the Project Falls Flat

However, Reality Labs, the Meta division overseeing its virtual and augmented reality projects, such as the Metaverse, lost $3.7 billion in the second quarter of 2023 and generated just $276 million in revenue, according to the company’s latest earnings report.

Mr. Zuckerberg expects spending on the Metaverse to accelerate, as the company remains dedicated to the VR project, which lost more than $13 billion last year.

Meta CFO Susan Li said that the company expected that the losses facing Reality Labs would “increase meaningfully” this year to get the Metaverse fully operational.

“We remain fully committed to the metaverse vision,” said  Mr. Zuckerberg during the earnings call, who downplayed the significance of the losses.

When investors  asked about the Metaverse expenditures, he pointed to the upcoming Quest 3 virtual reality headset for the system, which is planned to be released in time for Meta’s Connect event in September.

“This is going to be the biggest headset that we’ve released since 2020,” he said and that “There are just a lot of expenses related to bring that to market.”

Meta Cuts Staff in Attempt to Streamline the Company

Meta also confirmed that most of its 20,000 layoffs since last fall have already been “substantially completed.”

Mr. Zuckerberg called 2023 Meta’s “year of efficiency” in an attempt to streamline the company’s management structure and cut staff.

He praised the small team that oversaw the Threads’ launch as a sign that “cultural changes” at Meta were working.

“There’s a lot to feel good about when it comes to Meta right now,” Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, told Quartz via email.

Ms. Williamson praised the tech firm for turning around its business, but she still expects Meta’s market share in digital advertising to fall in 2023 due to stiff competition from TikTok and Amazon, while its Metaverse and AI platforms are still in development.

“These challenges will weigh on Meta in the second half of the year,” she said, “but thanks to the momentum of a better than expected second quarter, it will be in a stronger position to face those challenges.”

The company’s stock rose nearly 5 percent after the announcement at closing on July 26.

The Epoch Times reached out to Meta for comment.