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Meta Platforms (META) Launches Latest Family of Apps Features

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Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) launched the latest features across its Family of Apps to boost user growth and drive prospects.

Revenues from Family of Apps (99% of total revenues) in the third quarter of 2022, which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and other services, decreased 3.6% year over year to $27.43 billion. The company expects revenues to decrease further in the coming quarter.

This is due to a decline in its advertisement revenues, which represents 99.3% of Family of Apps revenues. In the third quarter of 2022, advertising revenues decreased 3.7% year over year to $27.24 billion and accounted for 98.3% of third-quarter revenues. The Family of Apps is the primary source of funding for Meta’s lofty metaverse dream, upon which the company is banking its future.

Meta Platforms is facing the worst downturn in its operational history. Meta’s ad revenue business is facing declining growth due to ad targeting-related headwinds created by Apple’s (AAPL - Free Report) iOS changes.

Apple’s iOS changes have made ad targeting difficult, which has increased the cost of driving outcomes. Measuring these outcomes is tough. Meta expects these factors to hurt advertising growth in the fourth quarter of 2022.

All of these contributed to Meta’s falling share price in the year-to-date period. Its shares have tumbled 65.7% in the year-to-date period compared with the Zacks Internet – Software industry’s decline of 61.1%.

The U.S. economy is facing macroeconomic turmoil due to the rising inflation and recession triggered by interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Rising inflation has also compelled domestic and global customers to pull back on their purchases.

Consequently, the slowing economy is likely to trigger cuts in ad spending, which will impact the revenues of ad-driven internet stocks like Meta, impacting their bottom-line growth.

META’s financial plans to generate sufficient operating income from its Family of Apps business segment to fund growth of its Reality Labs, which is responsible for building the metaverse, have taken a major hit. The company has been recently closing various long-term projects, which are burning a lot of cash.

Amid such a situation, Meta has been investing heavily in AI and launching features across Instagram and Facebook to boost its user growth in its Family of Apps, and increase top-line growth to meet its future goals of creating the metaverse.

Meta Boosting User Growth by Investing in AI

In the Instagram app, Meta launched a feature called Notes to communicate with followers and friends. Notes are short posts that consist of short posts of up to 60 characters using just text and emojis. These will appear at the top of a user’s inbox for 24 hours.

Meta is also testing new ways to share stories on its Instagram platform, like adding your nominations, candid stories and working on something called group profiles that users can share with each other.

Meta Platforms recently utilized AI to introduce age verification technology to Facebook Dating in the United States to prevent users under the age of 18 from accessing experiences meant to be enjoyed as adults. Meta’s recent initiative to use AI to launch age verification in Facebook dating is likely to boost user confidence amid stiffening competition.

Meta Platforms recently launched avatars on WhatsApp. The company used AI to create a digital version of users with various features, which creates a way of connecting with users and would be a small preview of how it would feel to communicate with others in the alternate reality of the metaverse.

META, which currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), is banking on its revenue growth in the coming quarters on solid return on investments from its investment in AI and ML and strategic partnerships.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

However, building the metaverse is a collective effort and as such, Meta is making strategic partnerships with PyTorch co-founder Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) and NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) to develop and architect the required AI models for the metaverse.

Microsoft is bringing new work and productivity tools to Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2 next year. These include apps like Microsoft Windows 365 and Microsoft Teams, and the ability to join a Teams meeting from inside Meta Horizons Workrooms, which will help create a seamless working experience in the metaverse.

Meta Platforms has collaborated with NVIDIA to build an AI research supercomputer, helping META AI researchers to build different AI models crucial for creating the metaverse.

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