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What about Facebook? How is it doing on planet Covid-19? There are currently 311 Vestact clients who own Facebook shares in their New York portfolios. The aggregate value of those holding is $10 207 448.
An organisation called comScore keeps track of the time spent on social media platforms every month. Sure enough, time spent on regular Facebook.com in March 2020 was up 11% compared to February. The boomers who use it to keep track of each other have time on their hands.
Total unique mobile visitors to Instagram rose by 3% compared to February and average daily minutes per user were up an impressive 14% over the prior month. Makes sense. What else can the millennials do with their spare time, under lockdown?
WhatsApp usage is probably through the roof too. Curating all those high-quality Covid-19 memes and then passing them on takes time.
The only problem is that the Facebook group makes money from hosting ads across these platforms, and under the current circumstances market budgets have been slashed. Also, some picky advertisers refuse to have their brands placed alongside stories about bats, the coronavirus, Covid-19 fatality rates, ventilators or excess deaths. Facebook is notoriously cagey about who its major advertisers are, but one can guess that airlines, hotels and restaurant chains are up there. Those are all in the deep freeze.
As an aside, Facebook has been doing their bit to combat Covid-19. They recently launched an opt-in symptom survey in the US with health researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. The survey asked people if they have symptoms such as fevers, coughing, shortness of breath or loss of smell, all are associated with covid-19. The results are a helpful indicator of future hospitalisations. They have been producing useful maps and data visualisations for health planners. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is also working on a number of Covid-19 projects.
The Facebook group share price is down 20% from its all-time high of $224.20 at the end of January 2020. It closed last night at $178.24. The company has first quarter results out on the 29th of April, after the closing bell. We will see then how they are doing. Of course, later in the year, advertisers will return in force.