So What Happened to Threads?

Photo Credit: Amirali Mirhashemian

Mark Zuckerberg reveals Meta’s 2023 Q4 and full year financials, including updates on the company’s Twitter-like platform, Threads.

Following the trend set in 2023, many tech companies have started off this year by laying off staff en masse while investing more efforts into developing artificial intelligence. After mass layoffs throughout the year, with the last major round in November, Meta reports a strong Q4 2023, and a pretty nice 2023 overall — owed in part to its work in the advancements of AI, and the success of Threads, the company’s answer to Twitter.

“Threads has more people actively using it today than it did during its initial launch peak,” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says of the platform that gained 30 million users within 24 hours of launch. “Threads is growing steadily with more than 130 million monthly actives.”

Meta’s board of directors reported a cash dividend of $0.50 per share of both Class A common stock and Class B common stock, payable on March 26, 2024 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 22. The company plans to pay a cash dividend on a quarterly basis from now on, subject to market conditions and approval by the board of directors.

“Beginning in 2022, we initiated several measures to pursue greater efficiency and to realign our business and strategic priorities,” reports Meta’s board of directors. “As of December 31, 2023, we have completed the data center initiatives and the employee layoffs, and substantially complete the facilities consolidation initiatives.”

Meta says that during the three to twelve-month period ending on December 31, 2022, the company recorded total restructuring charges of $4.20 billion and $4.61 billion, respectively.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, Meta’s ad impressions delivered across all its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) increased by 21% year-over-year, with the average price per ad increasing by 2% year-over-year. Ad impressions for the full year increased by 28%, while the average price per ad decreased by 9%.

“We had a good quarter as our community and business continue to grow,” Zuckerberg continues. “We’ve made a lot of progress on our vision for advancing AI and the metaverse.”

The company expects its first quarter 2024 total revenue to range from $34.5-37 billion, with the full-year expenses to range from $94-99 billion, unchanged from their prior financial outlook. Meta anticipates higher infrastructure costs this year, growth in payroll expenses as the company works through its “current hiring underrun and add incremental talent to support priority areas in 2024.”

Reality Labs, Meta’s augmented/virtual reality suite, continues to generate meaningful operating losses year-over-year due to “ongoing product development efforts […] and our investments to further scale our ecosystem.”

“This was a pivotal year for our company,” Meta concludes. “We increased our operating discipline, delivered strong execution across our product priorities, and improved advertising performance for the businesses who rely on our services. We will look to build on our progress in each of those areas in 2024 while advancing our ambitious, longer-term efforts in AI and Reality Labs.”

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