Bottom line: Facebook has released its third-quarter earnings report, showing that while the company is continuing to grow overall, it is doing so at an ever-decreasing rate. This means that despite the numerous scandals that have plagued it in 2018, there hasn't been the predicted mass exodus.
In Canada and the US, which is where Facebook makes the most money from each user, its number of Daily Active Users (DAUs) remained flat at 185 million during Q3; the same number it recorded throughout Q2. Things look even worse in Europe, where DAUs fell from 279 million to 278 million, though this may have been caused by the GDPR privacy regulations.
The overall picture was brighter, with all DAUs increasing 9 percent YoY to 1.49 billion, though analysts had forecast 1.5 billion. Monthly active users, meanwhile, were up to 2.27 billion---a ten percent jump compared to last year. The company also brought in $13.7 billion in revenue, which is up 33% year-on-year but just under Wall Street's estimates. Facebook did, however, beat analyst expectations on earnings per share
Mark Zuckerberg noted that while Facebook may be close to reaching a saturation point in the US and Europe, there's still room to expand "quickly" in developing countries. He also said that over 2.6 billion people use the company's family of apps--- WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger---every month.
Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said during a conference call that Stories, rather than the traditional News Feed, was Facebook's future. "Public sharing will always be very important but people want to share privately too," said the CEO. "People feel more comfortable being themselves when they know their content is only seen by a small group and when they know it won't be around forever."
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