Chris Cox, Product Manager, Meta, speaking to WEF in Davos, Switzerland on May 25, 2022.
Adam Galica | CNBC
Facebook-parents Meta warned employees to expect a difficult second half of the year as the company continues to face challenges related to its core online advertising business amid a weakening economy.
Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, detailed the company’s financial dilemma in an internal memo detailing key areas where the social media giant plans to investment plan, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC. The memo is Reuters’ previous report.
Cox reiterated statements made by Meta CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg during the company’s first-quarter call with analysts. income The report details the negative impact on the company’s business due to the privacy update Apple made to the iPhone last year.
The Meta CEO added that the company is in “serious times here and the headwinds are severe,” stressing that its challenges are not likely to go away anytime soon.
“We needed to function perfectly in a slower growth environment, where teams should not expect large amounts of new engineers and budgets,” Cox wrote. “We must prioritize more ruthlessly, think hard about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and speed within the company, and run teams neater, more flexible, more interesting.”
To offset the impact of Apple’s update, which limited Facebook’s ability to target ads to specific audiences, Cox said the company is working to monetize Instagram Reels, a TikTok competitor. its and also invest in AI to drive content recommendations like TikTok, as a company previously said.
Meta also plans to invest in features that will make it easier for retailers to show ads to customers across its app line and let employees communicate with businesses through messaging.
A Meta spokesperson downplayed the importance of the internal memo to CNBC, noting that, “This is simply an internal strategic memo that builds on what we’ve already said. openly in earnings about the challenges we face and the opportunities we have, where we’re putting more effort into solving the problem. “
Meta stock was relatively steady in after-hours trading on Thursday at $161.10.
