Last year was brutal for Meta Platforms (META 0.43%). The Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger parent's ad revenue suffered as a weak macroeconomic environment and changes to ad tracking and measurement on Apple's mobile operating system combined to create a significant headwind.
This headwind wreaked havoc on the stock, with shares of the tech company declining 65% last year. But The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that there may be some signs of improvement in Meta's business -- something that could prove to be a catalyst for the stock.
Here's a look at why 2023 could be a decent year for Meta's business and possibly its stock, too.
Meta's nightmare 2022
It's not surprising that Meta's stock took a beating last year. The bad news started early in 2022, when Meta reported its fourth-quarter 2021 results and said first-quarter revenue growth would slow dramatically due to Apple's iOS changes, a weak macroeconomic environment, and a shift of user engagement within the company's apps to its TikTok-like Reels format, which was monetizing at a lower rate than its more mature formats.
These trends largely persisted throughout 2022, as revenue growth decelerated dramatically in Q1 and turned negative by Q2. Revenue growth continued to decline on a year-over-year basis in Q3, and management said it expected fourth-quarter revenue to decline between 3% and 11% year over year. The midpoint of this range would be worse than the company's 4% revenue decline in Q3.
A turnaround may be underway
While Meta's performance was dismal last year, management emphasized on several occasions that it was confident it could turn things around eventually. In particular, the social media company believed it would be able to build out solutions to make its ad tracking and measurement less reliant on Apple's mobile operating system's capabilities. Further, Meta said throughout the year that even though its Reels format may be a headwind today, it would become a tailwind as the company improved its monetization.
Based on a report from WSJ on Friday, Meta has been making progress on these fronts. Investment in artificial intelligence tools to improve ad-targeting and forecasting and a shift to ad products that are less reliant on Apple's mobile operating system are paying off, WSJ reports. "Executives told employees in October that Meta expected to begin rebounding from Apple's change as soon as that quarter, which ended Dec. 31," wrote WSJ's Jeff Horwitz and Salvador Rodriguez, citing "internal documents" at Meta.
Of course, it's still impossible to know what Meta's fourth-quarter results may look like. We'll find out when the company reports fourth-quarter results on Feb. 1. It's worth noting that Meta's third-quarter report was released toward the end of October -- the same month WSJ said executives reported these improvements to employees, and almost a month into Q4. Management, therefore, likely attempted to conservatively bake in any improvements it was seeing into its fourth-quarter revenue guidance.
While it's possible Meta surprises to the upside for its fourth-quarter 2022 results, the internal documents WSJ cites at least provide an encouraging backdrop for a potential turnaround in the company's top-line trajectory in 2023.
