.jpg)
The fortune of Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of "Meta," increased by more than $28 billion between morning coffee and lunch break New York time on Friday after it jumped company shares by more than 20%, following the announcement of achieving revenues and profitability higher than expectations and also the announcement of distributing cash dividends to shareholders for the first time in its history.
The revenues of Meta, the company that owns the social networking site Facebook, rose by 25% in the fourth quarter of 2023 to $40.1 billion, up from $32.2 billion in the same quarter of the previous year. This is the fastest growth rate on record since mid-2021 and provides further evidence that the online advertising market is continuing to recover.
Meta's net income more than tripled to $14 billion, up from $4.65 billion the previous year.
The company expects its first-quarter sales to range between $34.5 billion and $37 billion. Analysts were waiting for expectations not to exceed $33.8 billion.
Zuckerberg owns about 350 million shares in the company, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. His wealth currently exceeds $140 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which places him fifth among the world's richest people.
Unless he sells or buys more company shares, and assuming quarterly profits remain at the same level, Zuckerberg will also benefit from the company's dividends, which amount to about $700 million annually, according to a report prepared by CNN.
The strong business results, along with the announcement of dividends, overshadowed the damage that some expected on the company’s stock after Zuckerberg, along with a group of other heads of social media companies, testified on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the risks posed by the products. Their companies focus on young people and children.
Zuckerberg was questioned about internal Meta documents indicating that the company estimates the lifetime value of a teenage user at $270, in addition to the company's transparency regarding how it monetizes user data.
Zuckerberg apologized to the parents in attendance, who said their children were victims of social media.
He said, "I'm sorry for everything you've been through. No one should have to go through the things your families have to go through, and that's why we're investing so much and will continue to make industry-wide efforts to make sure no one should have to go through the things your families have had to go through.".
Zuckerberg has not yet completed his forty-first year. He co-founded the social networking service Facebook with his Harvard roommates in 2004. In 2007, when he was 23 years old, he was the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
The site initially launched only on select university campuses, then quickly expanded beyond colleges, reaching one billion users in 2012.
Zuckerberg went public in May 2012. Since then, he has used his money to organize numerous charitable endeavors.
0 Comments