Entangled in an accumulation of polemics, Facebook confirmed the slowdown in growth in the third quarter, with notably fewer users than expected but avoided a stock market catastrophe like the one he experienced this summer.
Even if the turnover and the number of users have again disappointed the markets, investors expected this general slowdown, anticipated by the group itself.

So after falling by almost 3% in electronic trading on Wall Street immediately after the publication of the results, the title recovered sharply, advancing 1.22% to 148.1 dollars around 2100 GMT.

Facebook had as of September 30 2.27 billion monthly active users (+ 10%), less than the 2.29 billion anticipated by the markets, who scrutinize any signs of weakness of the titan.

It was 2.23 billion at the end of June. The number of daily users is also below expectations, at 1.49 billion against 1.51 expected.

All figures have confirmed that Facebook, after years of exponential growth, is experiencing the slowdown it has planned and announced.

Very observed, its turnover is, at 13.727 billion dollars, a little lower than expectations (13.78 billion). It is up 33% compared to the third quarter of 2017. In the second quarter the turnover was still growing by 42%.

The social network posted a net profit of $ 5.14 billion, up 9%, again well below the 31% jump in the previous quarter.

Adjusted and reported by share, a benchmark in North America, earnings nevertheless stood at $ 1.76, well above analysts’ expectations.

Facebook had been hit by a stock market snap in the wake of its disappointing quarterly results in July, losing $ 120 billion of market capitalization in a single session, the never-seen on Wall Street.

Disinformation, political manipulations, personal data management: Facebook has been in controversy for over a year, as many polemics bad for his image and likely to cool the public and advertisers.

The group also recently announced that the data of 29 million accounts had been compromised by hackers, a new blow in the consumer confidence.

He also spends his time purging his network of dubious contents and accounts of political manipulation, especially in the run-up to major elections such as the US legislative elections on November 6th.

Last week, he announced he had blocked a new “coordinated” campaign of political manipulation orchestrated according to him from Iran.

The group had also warned that spending on security and content control would weigh on its profitability. Its “costs and expenses” over the quarter reached $ 7.95 billion against $ 5.2 billion at the same time last year.

Even before all these scandals, the network had also warned in 2016 that its exponential growth would inevitably slow down, especially because the network is already completely saturated with advertising space.

He is also increasingly shunned by the younger ones.

He put his other platforms, such as messenger Messenger but especially Instagram, the photo sharing network that is very successful.

Facebook’s business model is based on the mountains of personal data it collects from its users. These data are used to target the ads more precisely.

Facebook, like other internet giants (Google, Amazon …), also faces regulatory or legislative oversight threats in the United States or additional taxes in some countries, such as Britain, which announced Monday a project in this sense.

Mark Zuckerberg is regularly implicated in the mistakes of the group he co-founded almost 20 years ago.

Investment funds and individual shareholders have already spoken to request his replacement as chairman of Facebook‘s board of directors.

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Hülya Karahan: The Founder

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