Meta shares plummet as Facebook growth stalls, guidance disappoints

Facebook owner Meta Platform's shares looked set to crater after the company reported stagnant user numbers on its main property and issued weaker than expected sales guidance for the current quarter.

Key to the setback was competition from TikTok although Mark Zuckerberg was optimistic that the company's new Reels unit would allow it to see off the threat from its Chinese rival.

Alphabet's YouTube and Snapchat were two other key competitors.

"We think it's definitely the right thing to lean into this and push as hard to grow Reels as quickly as possible and not hold on the brakes at all, even though it may create some near-term slower growth than we would have wanted," Zuckerberg said in a conference call following the company's latest results.

Facebook reported 2.91bn users for the fourth quarter, a figure that was flat on the same three months one year before and in North America user numbers slipped from 196m to 195m.

For the current quarter, Meta guided towards $27.0-29.0bn in sales, against analysts' estimates calling for $30.3bn.

Fourth quarter net income meanwhile came in at $10.3bn or $3.67 a share (consensus: $3.84).

Meta was also hit by Apple's decision to rein in third party tracking on its iPhones, which could subtract $10b from the Meta's topline in 2022.

The bad news came as Zuckerberg was increasingly focused on the so-called Metaverse and virtual reality.

Its Reality Labs division incurred a $3.3bn operating loss during the fourth quarter.

As of 1131 GMT, shares of Meta Platforms were plummeting by 20.87% to $255.60.