Meta Shares Plummet 20% In Pre-Market After Q3 Revenue Decline

Shares of Facebook’s parent firm Meta were down nearly 20% in pre-market trading, continuing a slide Thursday after the company’s third quarter earnings released a day earlier fell short of expectations. Early on Thursday morning, Meta’s shares were trading at around $103, down from $129 when markets closed on Wednesday afternoon. The social media giant reported quarterly revenue of $27.7 billion—down more than 4% year-on-year—its second consecutive quarter of revenue decline. Meta’s Reality Labs division, which is leading the company’s pivot towards building a metaverse, reported a $3.7 billion loss in the third quarter, bringing its total losses so far this year to $9.4 billion. In its press release, the company also warned it anticipates Reality Labs’ operating losses to “grow significantly” in 2023. Despite the steep losses, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on the company’s metaverse push during the earnings call, saying “people are going to look back on decades from now and talk about the importance of the work that was done here.” News peg Meta has seen its shares slump by more than 60% since the start of this year as part of a broader tech stock rout amid concerns about an economic downturn. Facebook, however, has fared worse than nearly all major tech stocks as it deals with slowing user growth, competition from rivals like TikTok and the impact of Apple’s new privacy measures for iPhone users on its targeted advertising business.