Facebook made Ksh1.32 trillion during the second quarter of 2018 but the social media company still missed Wall Street’s estimates on revenues and user growth.
The social networking site also saw its stock fall to almost 24% on Wednesday when its chief financial officer announced the company expects revenue growth to slow as it focuses on putting privacy first and works on rethinking its product experiences.
According to The Guardian, Wall Street analysts had expected Facebook to hit close to Ksh1.34 trillion in its quarterly estimates, with increased user growth of up to 1.49 billion daily active users. Despite not meeting estimates, the company’s Ksh1.32 trillion was still a 42% increase over the same period last year.
Facebook saw an 11% increase in active monthly users to settle at 2.23 billion people. Daily active users amount to 1.47 billion subscribers.
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The Guardian also reported that despite the numbers, a slow growth has also seen the market go flat in US and Europe where Facebook has its largest advertising markets.
“Our total revenue-growth rates will continue to decelerate in the second half of 2018, and we expect our revenue-growth rates to decline by high-single-digit percentages from prior quarters sequentially in both Q3 and Q4,” Facebook CFO David Wehner said on Wednesday.
The CFO said that expenses are expected to grow to 60% this year as opposed to 50% in 2017.
Facebook’s emphasis also seems to be heading towards its other apps with the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealing that at least 2.5 billion people use one of the social networking site’s apps every month. The apps are Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and messenger.
Zuckerberg also said, “We are investing so much in security that it will have a significant impact on our profitability. We are starting to see that this quarter.”
Commitment to security is part of Facebook’s promise made in November 2017 when Zuckerberg was grilled by US lawmakers over the supposed interference of Russia on the election that saw Donald Trump clinch the American presidential seat.
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The numbers also show that Facebook is still feeling the effects of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which brought to light discrepancies in user security in relation to foreign elections. The scandal that was highlighted by a joint investigation by The Guardian and The New York Times has seen Facebook make a number of changes to its advertising and security policies.
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