Facebook’s parent company Meta has been labeled a “train wreck” by financial analysts as the Big Tech giant has seen $700 billion wiped from its market value in just one year.
Meta reached its peak high of more than $1 trillion in September 2021.
However, the company’s bleak earnings and weak future strategy have seen its value come crashing down.
CBS News reports that Meta CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has taken a huge risk in pivoting the company toward a virtual reality metaverse in the last year.
The move, which involved rebranding from Facebook to Meta, does not appear to be working out well for Zuckerberg.
Meta’s shares have continued their downward trend throughout 2022.
In morning trading on Thursday, following a weak forecast for the fourth quarter that came with third-quarter earnings well below Wall Street’s expected earnings, the company’s value plunged by more than 24 percent.
Facebook is facing a number of issues currently, such as a slowdown in online ad spending and the negative impact of Apple’s iOS 14 App Tracking Transparency feature.
The company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has also faced increased competition from other platforms such as the Chinese Communist Party-owned video app TikTok.
This has resulted in the company posting consecutive quarters of revenue declines, with a third straight drop expected in the fourth quarter.
While company revenue fell by four percent in the third quarter, Facebook’s costs and expenses rose by 19 percent year over year to $22.1 billion.
Operating income declined 46 percent from the year previous to $5.66 billion.
One Wall Street analyst described the news of Facebook’s latest earnings report as a “train wreck.”
Facebook’s current state is a long way from its position just over a year ago when it was valued at more than $1 trillion.
Facebook’s shares are now down 67 percent from a year earlier, translating to a massive loss of around $700 billion in market value.
The company’s market value is now around $268 billion, roughly a quarter of its $1 trillion value in 2021.
“Meta’s results last night was an absolute train wreck that speaks to pervasive digital advertising doldrums ahead for Zuckerberg & Co. as they make the risky and head-scratching bet on the metaverse,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a report.
But on a Wednesday conference call to discuss the company’s latest earnings, Zuckerberg told investors that he is “pretty confident this is going in a good direction.”
