Social media giant Facebook recently reported a 17% rise in third-quarter profit, but warned that Apple’s new privacy changes would seriously affect its digital business in the fourth quarter.
The tech giant reported quarterly revenue that was below market forecasts, which Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg attributed to the iOS changes.
The company’s third-quarter revenue was also affected by Apple’s privacy policies, which made it harder for brands to target and measure their ads on the platform. Facebook expects to resolve “more than half” of the problems that led to under-reporting by the end of 2021.
David Wehner, Facebook’s chief financial officer, said the company is forecasting that its investments in its hardware division, Facebook Reality Labs, will reduce operating profit by about $10 billion in 2021.
The social media giant had 2.91 billion monthly active users in the third quarter, 6 percent more than a year ago, but fell short of analysts’ forecasts.
Facebook expects fourth-quarter revenue of $31.5 billion to $34 billion, and analysts expect revenue to rise 24.1 percent to $34.84 billion.
Facebook’s total revenue, which consists mainly of ad sales, rose to $29.01 billion in the third quarter from $21.47 billion in 2020, beating analyst forecasts of $29.57 billion. Sandberg said the social media giant’s advertisers were also negatively impacted by disruptions to the global supply chain and labor shortages that have affected ad demand worldwide.