The number of Facebook and Instagram users is equal to nearly half of the world's population

In its Q1/2024 financial report on April 24, Meta said it would no longer disclose daily and monthly active user numbers for each platform. Instead, the company released the total daily active user (DAP) figure for all of its platforms. According to Variety, this is seen as a sign that Meta's user base "may finally be stabilizing."

Specifically, Meta's DAP is now at 3.24 billion as of the end of March, up 7% from 3.19 billion in December 2023. Meanwhile, the world's population is currently 8.1 billion.

Threads — a social network Meta launched last year to compete with X — is one of the fastest-growing platforms. Threads now has more than 150 million daily active users, up from 130 million last quarter.

Meta has been on a roll since CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a “five-year plan” last year that included cutting 21,000 jobs and tightening spending. The company’s first-quarter 2024 revenue was $36.46 billion, up 27%, while net income rose 117% to $12.37 billion year-over-year, far exceeding Wall Street’s expectations.

However, according to CNBC, Meta shares fell 15% after the report. The reason is that the Metaverse segment continues to lose money. Reality Labs - the division in charge of virtual universe products - recorded an operating loss of $3.85 billion. The division's revenue was only $440 million, up 30% from $339 million a year ago and accounting for only about 1% of Meta's total revenue.

Meta also gave a lower forecast for Q2 2024 than analysts had expected. The company said it could achieve total revenue of $36.5-$39 billion this quarter, similar to Q1 2024. In addition, the company plans to increase spending for the entire year of 2024 to $35-$40 billion, higher than the $30-$37 billion analysts predicted, much of which will be used for AI ambitions.

Zuckerberg called the financial results a “good start” to the year. On the Reality Labs loss, he said the division “continues to make steady progress on building the metaverse” and won’t give up on its ambitions. On AI, he stressed that “it will take a few years” for Meta to fully scale and turn into profitable businesses.