Mar 24, 2020
Facebook says ads business weakening despite surge in usage
Bloomberg News
,Facebook Inc. said it’s seeing a “weakening” in its advertising business for some key geographies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our business is being adversely affected like so many others around the world,” the largest social network wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.
The company said usage for many of its services, including messaging and voice calls through Messenger and WhatsApp, has increased dramatically. Messaging has jumped more than 50 per cent “in many of the countries hit hardest by the virus,” Facebook said. But the services that are booming in popularity during the outbreak aren’t apps or products where Facebook has robust ad businesses, meaning the company isn’t seeing a boost in revenue from the surge in use.
“We don’t monetize many of the services where we’re seeing increased engagement, and we’ve seen a weakening in our ads business in countries taking aggressive actions to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” the company wrote.