Facebook’s stable of social media apps that include the Facebook app, Instagram, Whatsapp & Messenger now have over 3 billion active monthly users according to Facebook’s recent earnings report.
The Facebook app alone has seen its once 2.38 billion monthly users jump by 10% to 2.6 billion from the same period last year with daily active users hovering around 1.73 billion.
Facebook apps are so ingrained in today’s digital world that the majority of them count over 1 billion users in their own right and still going strong.
Most of these are free and Facebook, the parent company makes money through advertising. It has however warned that this might be affected by the coronavirus pandemic with most advertisers hoarding budgets given the restrictions in place that curb consumer spending.
Facebook in the first quarter of 2020 registered revenue of $17.74 billion with a net income of $4.9 billion but has warned its investors of tough times ahead, still due to COVID-19.
Much as most of the company’s revenue comes through advertising, some of its services are free of advertising. A case in point being Whatapp that it is yet to figure out how to monetize. We can only imagine what effect this will have on its finances once it is out of the way given Whatsapp alone has over 2 billion users.
Even though coronavirus pandemic is set to hit its bottom line, it has also led to the increased usage of Facebook’s line of apps as people try to stay in touch amid social distancing measures put in place by various governments and authorities.
This, on the other hand, has also led to a set of new problems like the spread of fake news that the company is fighting. Whatsapp recently limited forwarding messages and the move seems to be yielding results, its recent launch of the coronavirus information center to provide accurate and real-time information on COVID-19 among others.
