Research archive for META

When Meta reports their quarterly results, they don't break down their revenues by platform. In other words, we can't see how much money Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp makes by themselves.

I read a good sell-side report from US broker Jefferies last week, about Meta Platforms. They have a $585 per share target on the company (the current price is around $520).

There are indications that TikTok's rapid growth is beginning to level off, marking a significant shift from its explosive expansion since launching in 2016.

It's been 20 years since Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in a Harvard dorm room. The holding company stock, now called Meta, also happened to rocket 20% higher after it posted stellar results last week. They were truly impressive numbers.

Mark Zuckerberg changed his focus in 2023 from the metaverse to AI. His ability to change his mind is remarkable, especially since he had already rebranded the Facebook group as Meta Platforms.

When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion almost a decade ago, Mark Zuckerberg promised not to interfere too much with the messaging app. There was a subtle shift in 2019, when parent company Meta Platforms started tapping into WhatsApp's growth and business potential.

In February it will be ten years since Facebook (now Meta Platforms) bought WhatsApp. Where has all the time gone? They paid $19 billion for the messaging app back then, a significant amount of money considering that it hasn't generated much income since its acquisition.

Last week, Meta released some really good-looking numbers but the share price fell, along with the rest of the tech sector. Thankfully, Friday and Monday have both been strong up days, and it's trading above $300 again.

Meta Platforms is a slightly controversial Vestact-recommended portfolio holding. The social media giant has 3.9 billion monthly users on either Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp or Threads.

Meta Platforms (the company previously known as Facebook) had excellent results out last week, and the share price shot higher. It's now trading at around $325 per share, much closer to its all-time high of around $380 per share, and a far cry from its disastrously low price of $88 in October 2022.

Meta Platforms has unveiled the latest version of its mixed-reality headset, the Meta Quest 3, as a lower-cost alternative to the upcoming headset expected from Apple.

UK regulators have dealt an irritating blow to Meta as the tech giant was ordered to sell its GIF database and search engine, Giphy. In 2020, Meta acquired Giphy for approximately $400 million.

Meta (formerly Facebook) was fined a record 1.2 billion Euros ($1.3 billion) by the European privacy regulators for transferring EU user data to the US. Meta's share price rose 1.1% yesterday, now up 99% in 2023 so far.

Last week Meta Platforms posted very strong results, pushing the stock up 14% for the day. The company beat expectations for revenue and profits, and set guidance for the coming quarter higher than previously forecast. Its underlying operations, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp each performed well.

Meta is one of our more controversial holdings. Many clients don't like it because it went from $330 a share in January 2022 to $90 in November 2022. Ouch! Also, despite how much we love interacting on our phones, some people view social media companies as the modern equivalent of cigarette companies - highly profitable and selling an addictive product that is bad for society.