Meta (Facebook) – Company Overview, History, Products

Meta Platforms (formerly known as Facebook) is the most popular American multinational company which is famous for its social media products like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meta comes in the world’s most valuable companies and it also shares a big part in top IT companies in the US like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Recently in October 2021, Facebook Inc changed its name officially to Meta Platforms Inc to reflect its shift towards the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is constantly pushing meta to develop a virtual reality technology on their headset called Oculus. The main source of revenue for Meta comes from its products like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Messenger, Facebook Watch, Oculus, Giphy, etc.

Meta employs more than 83,000 people and it has generated a revenue of over 117.9 billion dollars in 2021. Has also reportedly lost more than 600 billion dollars from its highest peak valuation of 1 trillion dollars after its low revenue and weak ad sales. Meta has its headquarters in Menlo Park, California

History of Meta

The company Facebook Inc was initially founded by Harvard undergraduate student Mark Zuckerberg (dropped out) and his other colleagues including Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes in 2004. Initially, during the launch of Facebook, it was only for the students in universities but then slowly it ruled out to other public as well. People were able to talk to their friends and family online and share photos with them on Facebook due to which became very popular in no time.

In 2012 Facebook filed for IPO to raise 5 billion dollars but with active 845 million users, Facebook became one of the largest valued publicly traded companies by getting a 104 billion valuation. One of the biggest scandals in the history of Meta is Cambridge Analytica in which Meta was fined nearly 5 billion dollars because the company was accused of using leaking data of its customers which was allegedly later used to affect the 2016 presidential election of the United States.

On October 3, 2021, all three major services provided by Meta including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp reportedly went down for users all over the world for nearly 8 hours due to which the valuation of Meta dropped by 200 billion dollars in no time.

Acquisition and Business Strategies of Meta

Meta is one of the biggest social media companies and it generates revenue by advertising on its platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It is also one of the first companies to introduce the concept of Meta to the world through its headset called Oculus Quest. Recently, Facebook Inc has changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc in order to focus its vision on developing meta because the CEO believes that the future is based on virtual reality and augmented reality.

Facebook has carried out many acquisitions till now. Facebook acquired Instagram for 1 billion US dollars in cash and stock in April 2012. Then in February 2014, Facebook acquired the famous messaging platform WhatsApp for a record 19 billion dollars in cash and stock, then it required the company Oculus VR for 2.3 billion dollars for its virtual reality headset in 2016.

Facebook also decided to invest a walking 5.7 billion dollars in the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries to buy a 10% stake in Jio platforms. Also recently Meta has been getting huge opposition from government agencies and authorities for its acquisitions. Recently United Kingdom Competition and Market Authority blocked the deal for Facebook to acquire Giphy for 400 million dollars.

Meta Products and Services

The biggest production services for Meta in terms of customers and market share are Facebook and Instagram itself. They are both photo and video sharing platforms that allow users to interact with their friends, share stories and also follow celebrities online. Both Instagram and Facebook have more than two billion users as of now. The services generate huge revenue for meta by targeted advertising to the customers based on their social media data and customizations.

The next biggest service provided by Meta platforms is WhatsApp Messenger. It is one of the most popular messaging applications all over the world with more than two billion active users. Users can text messages and voice messages along with sharing images, documents, etc. WhatsApp allows its users to have an end encrypted chatting in personal and group chats.

Recently Meta has been focusing more on the metaverse which will be powered by its oculus quest headsets. Meta has created Reality Labs that will produce Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to produce VR devices for its users.