Facebook Reports First Quarter 2021 Results [pdf]

Total daily users increased 8% but ad revenue improved 46% because of competition for ad slots. This is because FB targeting works really well, better than any other attention based ad channel. 90% of major ad spenders on FB nowadays are very direct response, ROI based marketing orgs, and they spend where the results are.

> In the third and fourth quarters of 2021, we expect year-over-year total revenue growth rates to significantly decelerate sequentially as we lap periods of increasingly strong growth. We continue to expect increased ad targeting headwinds in 2021 from regulatory and platform changes, notably the recently-launched iOS 14.5 update, which we expect to begin having an impact in the second quarter. This is factored into our outlook.

This isn't the best time to depend on an anti-privacy business model, it seems.

I wonder how many FB users are like me: people who don't identify as FB users bur who do actually use FB out of necessity, and pretty often.

I've moved several times in the last year, and (unfortunately) FB is how I:

- connect with local groups of parents (FB has no competition in this vertical)

- connect with local athletic groups (Strava and others exist, but try planning an outing on Strava)

- see what the local take-out restaurants are offering today (FB and Instagram own this niche, which has exploded)

- get recommendations on contractors, service providers, etc (often passively, by searching groups for recent answers to someone else asking the same question)

- find out about when local organizations or companies I care about are doing something (you can't really rely on libraries etc. announcing things via email anymore, but they won't do anything without posting to FB)

On top of all this, I use Instagram, not only to post photos but also to explore the area around where we've settled. I search by location a ton and have found it's a great way to learn about what people do and where they go when you're not able to meet people and get recommendations the normal way.

So yeah, I rage quit previously but FB has got my number again.

> 8% YoY user growth and 46% YoY revenue growth

Curious how well understood the mechanics are of this. I've been fascinated by how clever the whole model works. They know revenue growth needs to outpace their ability to increase available ad space (so user growth or attention growth). So they are heavily reliant on data to improve ad targeting so they can drive more conversion per ad impression.

The power of the ad auction model is that 100% of the improved efficiency of ad targeting is translated to revenue for Facebook. Advertisers will pay $X for a conversion in their ROI calculations - so Facebook will get the maximum amount the market will pay a certain for a given conversion. Advertisers are actually a little worst off as targeting gets better - the conversion cost stays the same and the number of impressions goes down.

To keep growing revenue at this pace, Facebook needs to continually feed the beast with better and better data so they can squeeze more and more conversions out of their existing ad space.

The only other two ways to grow revenue is more users and more time from users. Which is getting tougher and tougher. That's why this Apple fight is so important to Facebook - it's really their lifeblood right now.

> Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.88 billion on average for March 2021, an increase of 8% year-over-year.

> Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.85 billion as of March 31, 2021, an increase of 10% year-over-year.

Let this be another sign that Facebook's demise is greatly exaggerated: their daily & monthly active user counts are _still growing_ ... and by non-trivial amounts.

Almost _2 billion_ people visit Facebook at least once _daily_ .... that's mind-blowing.

Yes, I know: the common HN refrain is "how many are fake / bot accounts?" etc. etc. Until that's proven to be a real problem, which would lead to significant lawsuits for misleading shareholders, I will lean on the hypothesis that the significant majority of this growth is "real."

You can play "chicken little" all you want and say "Facebook will go away just like MySpace," but doubters should be sweating right now, as the numbers refuse to show that.

What is q4cdn? I did a whois, and I tried to find more details. I'm not sure why this wouldn't be directly from a Facebook IR or news wire hosted press release. I'd like to have some knowledge of who/what is running it, since this is a pdf.

How does one learn to analyze these quarterly results and other financial reports (e.g., 10-K)? What books/videos/courses would take an absolute beginner towards becoming an expert? Would proper analysis of these results/other financial reports enable one to decide which company is a worthwhile investment? It seems like learning accounting would be a good start.

You did not see anything yet. Wait till they put ads in WhatsApp.