Meta presents its 2021 results

Feb 6, 2022 thejournalbiz

There are 2,82 billion daily active user of all Meta platforms, of which facebook has 1.93 billion. This is an increase of 9% and %5 respectively, year-over-year, according to the Full Year 2021 Results that Meta Platforms Inc published this Wednesday.

	Twelve Months	Ended December 31,	%
	2021	2020
Revenue	117,929	85,965	37%
Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenue	22,649	16,692	36%
Research and development	24,655	18,447	34%
Marketing and sales	14,043	11,591	21%
General and administrative	9,829	6,564	50%
Total costs and expenses	71,176	53,294	34%
Income from operations	46,753	32,671	43%
Interest and other income, net	531	509	4%
Income before provision for income taxes	47,284	33,180	43%
Provision for income taxes	7,914	4,034	96%
Net income	39,370	29,146	35%

Obviously, all numbers show the business was good throughout the year, a 35% increase in net income. Despite of this, its stock price fell on Thursday by more 26%, to $237.76 from its previous close of $323 a day before it published its Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Results.

Investors’ expectations of Meta’s performance were much higher. These results seem to have disappointed them. This was immediately reflected in the market.

Nonetheless Meta platforms Inc. has an optimistic outlook about its future performance. Its CFO stated “We expect first quarter 2022 total revenue to be in the range of $27-29 billion, which represents 3-11% year-over-year growth”.

Meta’s next reporting event is supposed to happen by the end of April 2022. Until then we will see if the market will regain trust and whether its stock price will recuperate to last year’s level. Or, maybe it will remain at its pre-pandemic level at about $200.