Apple’s privacy tweak to its iOS operating system last year will reduce Facebook’s sales by approximately $10 billion this year, Meta said on Wednesday.
“We anticipate the overall impact of iOS is a headwind for our business in 2022,” Meta CFO Dave Wehner said after the firm reported fourth-quarter profits. « It’s around $10 billion, so it’s a big deal for our business. »
Facebook’s revelation is the first tangible evidence of the impact of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature, which limits advertisers’ access to an iPhone user identifier.
Meta’s stock dropped 23% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the business warned of various problems and user shortages. Facebook expects first-quarter revenue of $27-29 billion, vs analyst expectations of $30 billion.
For this year, Wehner estimates a $10 billion revenue damage.
“We’re just evaluating the total impact of the cumulative iOS changes,” Wehner said. “If we aggregate the changes on iOS, that’s the magnitude. We can’t be precise. It’s a guess.”
