Facebook loses users in Europe

And unlike in previous quarters, where sales were consistently above badysts' expectations, the social network missed the target this time around. Facebook also predicted a further significant slowdown in revenue growth over the rest of the year.

The stock price initially lost more than eight percent in value after the figures were presented. After slowing down in the next few quarters announced during a conference call, it has even dropped by more than 20%. Thus, the company has lost in one go more than 100 billion dollars of its stock market value.

The use in the domestic market remains the same

This also helped to erase the recent price gains. Facebook's share initially dropped significantly in March after revelations around Britain's Cambridge Analytica, which inappropriately addressed user data. However, she had recovered in the meantime and the price had increased significantly above the $ 185 that he had before the revelations. The losses Wednesday, but brought it below this value.

For Facebook, it was the first full quarter after the data scandal. In the aftermath of this controversy, there have been calls to boycott Facebook, but the company initially stated that it had no impact on user numbers or on advertisers.

In the second quarter, Facebook had 2.23 billion users worldwide calling service at least once a month, with daily users at 1.47 billion. Overall, these values ​​were higher than in the first quarter, but decreased in Europe. For example, the number of daily users has increased from 282 million to 279 million. As in the first quarter, there were 185 million daily users in the US domestic market. The number of users has increased especially in Asian markets such as India.

The user decline is no surprise

Out of the blue, the decline of users in Europe does not come. Facebook predicted in April that membership in the region could stagnate or shrink. This was not justified, however, with the data deal, but with the data protection regulation, which came into effect in May. Chief Financial Officer David Wehner also announced this statement Wednesday during a conference call. He also blamed the new law for slower sales growth in Europe than elsewhere.

In the second quarter, Facebook increased its revenues by a staggering 42 percent to $ 13.2 billion. However, badysts were hoping for $ 13.4 billion and in the first quarter, growth was still 49%. Earnings per share of $ 1.74 was slightly better than expected.

Overall net income, however, grew at a much slower pace than sales and rose 31% to $ 5.1 billion. This has to do with considerably higher costs. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a teleconference that the increase in security spending would have had an impact on profitability.

The company predicts that costs will increase faster than sales by the end of the year and in 2019. It also provided for a further slowdown in revenue growth in percentage to one. high figure. This is explained by the negative exchange rate effects, but also by the effects of the new European Data Protection Act.