The title of the Californian group lost more than 12% on Wall Street Wednesday during electronic trading after the close of trading.

Its turnover stood at 27.7 billion dollars (-4%), in line with market expectations.

Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, quoted in the earnings release, admitted facing "short-term challenges on income" but assured that the fundamentals were "in place for a return to stronger growth".

The company said its global workforce (87,000 as of September 30) would not change by the end of next year.

“Some teams will not change in size, others will shrink and we will grow only those that work on our highest priorities,” detailed the group.

A year ago, Facebook became Meta and projected itself into a glorious future where its users could find themselves in the metaverse, a parallel universe described as the future of the internet.

But "Meta in 2022 has little to do with Facebook a year ago. Many aspects of its business are upside down and its near-term outlook is not promising," said analyst Debra Aho Williamson. from Inside Intelligence.

The company has been worrying the markets since the beginning of the year, when the group first announced that it had lost users on its original social network, Facebook.

In all, some 3.71 billion people use at least one of the company's services (social networks and messaging) every month, or 4% more than a year ago.

Apple and TikTok

Like Google (Alphabet), Meta is suffering from inflation and rising interest rates, which lead many advertisers to scale back their marketing budgets.

In the third quarter, the online search giant achieved the weakest revenue growth since 2013, apart from the start of the pandemic.

Apple's new rules, which require apps to ask users' permission to track them and send them ads, have also made things much harder for Facebook and Instagram.

On Monday, the iPhone manufacturer also announced that purchases of "boosts", these tools which allow content to be promoted on social networks, would now be treated as expenses in the application, in the same way as purchases. bonuses in video games, for example.

But Apple takes a 30% commission on these expenses in the apps.

Meta will therefore lose part of its advertising revenue on Facebook and Instagram.

"Apple continues to evolve its regulations to grow its own business while undermining others in the digital economy," a Meta spokesperson said Wednesday.

"Apple had said in the past that they wouldn't take ad revenue share from app publishers, but apparently they've changed their minds."

From YouTube to Snapchat, the major platforms are also suffering from the success of the very popular TikTok, "but this is not the main source of difficulty for Meta", estimates Debra Aho Williamson.

“Even if some advertisers shift part of their budgets to (this application), it probably does not represent a significant share of the group's total advertising revenue”.

Meta is expected to earn more than $129 billion from advertising this year, or 21.4% global market share, according to Insider Intelligence.

"In the long term, Meta must solve three huge problems," elaborates the analyst.

"The company is no longer at the forefront of innovation, its grip on its market is weakening, and the promise of the metaverse, at the heart of Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the future of his company, is facing to consumer apathy, professional skepticism and the realities of a declining global economy."

© 2022 AFP