Facebook : Financial Results are Out

Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.

“Our work has always been about helping you stay connected with the people you care about,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “With people relying on our services more than ever, we’re focused on keeping people safe, informed and connected.”

Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook is supporting the global public health community’s work to ensure everyone has access to accurate information. We are also working to address the long-term impacts of the crisis by supporting industries in need and making it easier for people to find and offer help in their communities. We have committed over $300 million to date in investments to help our broader community during the crisis, including creating a $100 million grant program to help small businesses and investing $100 million to support the news industry.

We launched a COVID-19 information center on Facebook to provide real-time information, health and well-being tips, and the ability to offer and ask for help. We are also matching $20 million in donations to support COVID-19 relief efforts, providing health organizations with free ads and tools to track the pandemic, offering Workplace to government and emergency organizations for free, and donating $25 million to support healthcare workers on the front lines.

To help people stay connected as a record number of people use our services, we are making our apps more efficient and adding capacity, while also prioritizing enhancements in key services, such as real-time video experiences and live game-streaming.

First Quarter 2020 Financial Highlights

First Quarter 2020 Operational and Other Financial Highlights

• Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.73 billion on average for March 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year.
• Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.60 billion as of March 31, 2020, an increase of 10% year-over-year.
• Family daily active people (DAP) – DAP was 2.36 billion on average for March 2020, an increase of 12% year-over-year.
• Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 2.99 billion as of March 31, 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year.
• Capital expenditures – Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $3.66 billion for the first quarter of 2020.
• Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities – Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $60.29 billion as of March 31, 2020. Following the end of the quarter, we entered into an agreement to invest in Jio Platforms Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, for approximately $5.7 billion, and we paid the $5.0 billion settlement amount due under our modified consent order with the FTC, which took effect in April 2020.
• Headcount – Headcount was 48,268 as of March 31, 2020, an increase of 28% year-over-year.

Impact of COVID-19 on Outlook

Our business has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and, like all companies, we are facing a period of unprecedented uncertainty in our business outlook. We expect our business performance will be impacted by issues beyond our control, including the duration and efficacy of shelter-in-place orders, the effectiveness of economic stimuli around the world, and the fluctuations of currencies relative to the U.S. dollar.

• Engagement – Our community metrics, including Facebook DAUs and MAUs and Family MAP and DAP, reflect increased engagement as people around the world sheltered in place and used our products to connect with the people and organizations they care about. We expect that we will lose at least some of this increased engagement when various shelter-in-place restrictions are relaxed in the future.
• Revenue – We experienced a significant reduction in the demand for advertising, as well as a related decline in the pricing of our ads, over the last three weeks of the first quarter of 2020. Due to the increasing uncertainty in our business outlook, we are not providing specific revenue guidance for the second quarter or full-year 2020, but rather a snapshot on revenue performance in the second quarter thus far. After the initial steep decrease in advertising revenue in March, we have seen signs of stability reflected in the first three weeks of April, where advertising revenue has been approximately flat compared to the same period a year ago, down from the 17% year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2020. The April trends reflect weakness across all of our user geographies as most of our major countries have had some sort of shelter-in-place guidelines in effect.
• Total expenses – We expect to realize operational expense savings in certain areas such as travel, events, and marketing as well as from slower headcount growth in our business functions. However, we plan to continue to invest in product development and to recruit technical talent. In addition, we have committed over $300 million to date in investments to help our broader community during the crisis, which will have an impact on our financial performance this year. As a result, we expect total expenses in 2020 to be between $52-56 billion, down from the prior range of $54-59 billion. While this reflects a moderate reduction in the planned growth rate of total expenses, our overall expense growth in the face of expected revenue weakness will have a negative impact on 2020 operating margins.
• Capital expenditures – Our significant investments in infrastructure over the past four years have served us well during this period of high user engagement. We plan to continue to grow our capex investments to enhance and expand our global infrastructure footprint over the long term. In 2020, we expect capital expenditures to be approximately $14-16 billion, down from the prior range of $17-19 billion. This reduction reflects a significant decrease in our construction efforts globally related to shelter-in-place orders. Given the strong engagement growth and related demands on our infrastructure, this year’s capex reduction should be viewed as a deferral into 2021 rather than savings.
• Tax rates – We expect our full-year 2020 tax rate will be in the high-teens, although we may see fluctuations in our quarterly rate depending on our financial results.

Webcast and Conference Call Information

Facebook will host a conference call to discuss the results at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET today. The live webcast of Facebook’s earnings conference call can be accessed at investor.fb.com, along with the earnings press release, financial tables, and slide presentation. Facebook uses the investor.fb.com and newsroom.fb.com websites as well as Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/zuck) as means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

Following the call, a replay will be available at the same website. A telephonic replay will be available for one week following the conference call at +1 (404) 537-3406 or +1 (855) 859-2056, conference ID 2865867.

Transcripts of conference calls with publishing equity research analysts held today will also be posted to the investor.fb.com website.

SOURCE Facebook