Facebook generated more than a fifth more revenue from advertising in the third quarter, despite the boycott that many large companies announced against the social media company this summer.
The tech group, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is more pessimistic about the near future. The threat of stricter regulations for social media companies creates uncertainty.
Third-quarter sales were $ 21.5 billion, up 22 percent from the same period last year. That increase was entirely due to increased revenues from advertisers using Facebook platforms. Operating profit increased by 12 percent to USD 8 billion.
This does not seem to affect the advertising stop that Unilever, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Pepsico, among others, announced against Facebook.
The companies announced in July that they would no longer advertise via Facebook for the time being, because the company would do too little to combat racism and hatred on its platforms.
An explanation by financial director David Wehner shows that the dangers for Facebook do not come from the corner of advertisers. He foresees “increasing uncertainty” for 2021. This is partly due to stricter privacy measures in the operating system for iPhones, which may make it more difficult to capitalize on personal data.
Despite the increasing criticism of Facebook, the number of users is still rising significantly.
In September, the sites of the American internet company had 1.8 billion daily active users, 12 percent more than a year earlier. The number of monthly active users rose just as fast to over 2.7 billion people.
