Meta’s sales grew at the slowest pace since its IPO, as Big Techies hit a wall

Oh, Zuck... Even legless metaverse avatars can't distract from this reality: Meta posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth since going public as Facebook in 2012. In the previous quarter, Meta reported a $1B profit hit and its first-ever dip in daily users (cue: TikTok smirk). The latest: users actually ticked up last quarter, but financials… weren’t great.

• Top line: Sales growth majorly slowed to 7%, from 20% in the previous quarter. Meta has blamed Apple’s iOS privacy update for sagging ad sales (ads = nearly all its revenue).
• Bottom line: Profit fell for the second quarter in a row, down to $7.5B, from $9.5B a year earlier. Meta has spent $10B on its meta-ambitions, and it's eating into earnings.
• Wall Street's line: “Could’ve been worse.” Meta stock popped 16% after it reported, as investors were surprised by better-than-expected profit.
• Plot line: As of yesterday’s close, Meta stock had lost nearly half its value this year. Compare that to the Nasdaq, which has lost one-fifth (also… not great).

FAANG may be losing its teeth... Meta isn't the only Big Techie with slacking growth. Last week Netflix tanked on news that it lost 200K subscribers last quarter — and expects to lose millions more. On Monday, Google reported slowing sales growth and profits. Investors also ghosted Snap, which disappointed on earnings as ads faced pressure.