Wall Street panicked when $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ lost 20M DAUs Q/Q.
This panic is overblown, as it was entirely because of Iran and Russia.
A reminder that Israel and the US started a war with Iran on February 28, 2026. To keep its oppressed population from coordinating a revolution, Iran has implemented a severe internet blackout. Meta didn’t give specific numbers, but some estimate there are more than 40M users for Meta’s apps in Iran, who were unable to access them.
Similar things are happening in Russia, which is implementing more severe internet censorship. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the country has cracked down on civil liberties and free speech to avoid large protests. WhatsApp was extremely popular in Russia, with an estimated 100M users who can’t use the service anymore without VPNs.
This reminds me of investors panicking over Netflix losing a million subscribers for similar reasons when it left Russia in 2022 after the country’s attack on Ukraine.
In the long term, the loss of these users has no impact on Meta’s business, as they were not heavily monetized anyway.
This was a one-time impact, which will reverse as Meta gains users in other countries.
It is believed that by 2030, over a billion people worldwide will gain access to the internet!
If we exclude China, there are approximately 2.2B people in the world without access to the internet. The majority of these people are in developing countries such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and others.
As these people come online, Meta’s apps, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger, are some of the first that people download.
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