Facebook reports losing users for the first time in its history

Facebook’s earnings report on Wednesday showed the social media platform losing users for the first time in its 18-year history. 

Facebook’s active users went down by about 500,000 users to 1.93 billion people at the end of 2021, the earnings report showed.

The biggest drops came in Africa and Latin America.

The drop in users came with Facebook’s parent company Meta reporting an underwhelming first quarter for 2022. 

The company said it is expected to make between $27 billion and $29 billion in revenue for quarter one of 2022. Wall Street originally predicted Meta would make at least $30 billion. 

After the reported loss in users and expected revenue decrease, Meta’s stock fell 20 percent. 

Shares went from around $323 per share to $252 per share. Meta said the expected drop in revenue was from privacy changes to Apple’s iOS, supply chain issues and other factors.