Meta Platforms - statistics & facts

In February 2022, Meta had a market capitalization of over 594 billion U.S. dollars, making it the third largest internet company in the United States behind Alphabet and Amazon.com. Meta’s annual revenue was 117.9 billion U.S. dollars for the fiscal year 2021, up from 85.9 billion in 2020. The vast majority of Meta’s revenue is generated by its Family of Apps (FoA), accounting for 115.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, the remaining 2.27 billion U.S. dollars generated by Reality Labs. Overall, over 97 percent of Meta’s revenue is produced through advertising.

Meta’s Family of Apps and Reality Labs

Popularity and user numbers of Meta’s social media platforms continue to grow worldwide, with usage being indubitably boosted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2021, Facebook had roughly 2.9 billion monthly active users worldwide making it the most used social network in the world. Although Google’s video sharing service YouTube ranked second, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger all belonged to the top five most popular social networks worldwide. Additionally, Meta’s photo sharing app Instagram reached two billion monthly active users worldwide in 2021, just over 11 years after being launched.

Another product owned by Meta is virtual reality headset Oculus. The mobile app compatible with the VR headsets experienced a huge increase in downloads last year, with a substantial surge over Christmas 2021.

Meta’s controversies

In 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which people’s data was used without their consent, brought Meta’s business ethics into public discussion. More recently, Meta has been accused of inadequate action surrounding content regulation, as the company’s social media platforms have been utilized for the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation, a pressing matter when considering a large proportion of adults use social media as a source of news. With Meta’s planned integration of its products and services with the metaverse, questions have been raised regarding the already problematic relationship with content control and how this could be tackled in a virtual reality environment.

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