Meta Inc. Formerly Facebook has surfaced as the fourth quarter’s biggest losers in the advertising wars.
The stock price of Meta plunged 26% Thursday after the company revealed that it was hit by Apple’s privacy changes, saying that it forecast the feature to cause a $10 billion revenue decrease to the company in 2022.
The business model of Facebook relies heavily on advertising. Most of the gains that the company makes come from providing marketers with data to better target clients. But, with Apple’s latest App Tracking Transparency feature, targeting capabilities of Facebook will be limited, and iPhone users will be able to decline Facebook’s data tracking.
Following the news, $232 billion were erased from the value of the social media giant on Thursday. The dramatic decline is the biggest one-day drop in value in the history of the U.S. stock market. The plunge followed a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast. Before Meta’s market cap massive plunge, Apple lost $182 billion in market value in September 2020.
