Facebook: Shareholders quit in droves, as metaverse project gulps tens of $billions without profit

*The numbers telling the story of Meta’s disastrous first year, chronicling the 75 percent drop in the tech giant’s $800billion market cap, following rebranding from Facebook October 2021

*Company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains unmoved, insisting the payoff will come in the 2030s

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

Meta, as Facebook is now popularly called has continued to lose, and the company’s stock value is down 75 percent.

ConsumerConnect learnt the hitherto world’s biggest social media firms spending on the elusive metaverse is in the tens of billions, with no sign of profits on the horizon.

The company is a shadow of its former self as shareholders desert it in droves, agency report said.

It is recalled that around this time 2021, Facebook had decided to change course and rename itself ‘Meta’.

However, 365 days later, its stock is down 75 percent, and expenditure on the metaverse project runs into tens of billions of Dollars without profit yet.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains optimistic

In view of the current fortune of the global tech giant, Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Meta, remains unmoved.

Zuckerberg yet is insisting that the payoff for the efforts will come in the 2030s, according to report.

But for now, the company is a shadow of its former self as shareholders desert it in droves, report said.

Meta’s 12-month story in numbers

Here are the numbers that tell the story of Meta’s disastrous first year in the global technology ecosystem.

$800 billion

The fall in Meta’s market cap since it was rebranded from Facebook in late October 2021.

That’s more than the market cap of Tesla, Exxon Mobil, and every other company on earth except Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Saudi Aramco.

$237.23 billion

Meta’s market cap as of November 4, 2022.

It was last around that level in mid-2015.

$230 billion

The drop in Meta’s market cap on February 3, 2022 – by far the biggest one-day loss for a US company in history.

Its stock tanked 26.4 percent that day after the company reported its first ever drop in daily user numbers.

$100 billion

The decline in CEO Zuckerbuerg’s personal fortune since the start of 2022.

That’s around the net worth of Warren Buffet, the world’s sixth-richest person.

Zuckerberg holds a 13% stake in Meta.

500th in S&P ranking

Meta’s ranking – dead last – on the list of the S&P 500’s worst performers of 2022.

The stock is down more than 73% since the start of the year.

$19.6 billion

Meta’s operating losses from its metaverse project – Reality Labs – since last year.

The company reported $10.2 billion in losses from the project in 2021 and $9.4 billion as of the third quarter of 2022. That’s more than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Georgia (the country, not the US state), which stood at $18.7 billion in 2021.

97.51percent

The fall in Meta’s free cash flow, from $12.7 billion at the end of 2021 to $316 million in the third quarter of 2022, as it continues to splurge on Zuck’s pet project.

87,314 employees

The number of employees at Meta as of September 30, 2022, a 28 percent increase year-on-year, according to its third-quarter earnings report.

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