Sawt Falasteen - Meta's quarterly profit more than halved to $4.4 bn

The social networking giant, which faces stagnating user numbers and cuts in advertising budgets, also said revenue slipped to $27.7 billion from $29 billion a year earlier.

"We're approaching 2023 with a focus on prioritization and efficiency that will help us navigate the current environment and emerge an even stronger company," Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said in an earnings release.

"While we face near-term challenges on revenue, the fundamentals are there for a return to stronger revenue growth."

The number of monthly active users at Facebook was up just two percent to 2.96 billion at the end of September, Meta reported.

Meanwhile, the number of employees at the tech titan tallied 87,314, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the earnings report stated.

"We are making significant changes across the board to operate more efficiently," Meta said in the release.

"We are holding some teams flat in terms of headcount, shrinking others and investing headcount growth only in our highest priorities."

The Silicon Valley-based tech firm said that it expects to hold headcount levels in check over the next year.

- Apple squeeze -

Big tech platforms have been suffering from the economic climate, which is forcing advertisers to cut back on marketing budgets, and Apple's data privacy changes, which have reduced leeway for ad personalization.

Apple last year began letting iPhone users decide whether to allow their online activity to be tracked for the purpose of targeting ads -- a change which it said shows its focus is on privacy, but which critics note does not prevent the company itself from tracking.

Meta expected that policy, which impacts the precision of the ads it sells and thus their price, to cost the social media giant $10 billion in lost revenue this year.

This week, Apple updated its App Store rules to require that apps offered there use its payment system for sales of "boosted" posts, which are essentially ad messages promoted to the top of social media feeds for a price.

The App Store is the lone gateway for digital content to get onto iPhones or iPads.

The change means that Apple will be able to collect its 30 percent commission on that type of advertising at Facebook and Instagram, where all the money made previously had gone to Meta because they used their own payment system.

"Apple continues to evolve its policies to grow their own business while undercutting others in the digital economy," Meta said in reply to an AFP inquiry.

"Apple previously said it didn't take a share of developer advertising revenue, and now apparently changed its mind."

Meta had long delivered seemingly endless upward growth, but reported early this year its first decline in global daily users.

In July, Meta reported its first quarterly revenue drop and a plunging profit.

H.Nasr--SF-PST