Is Facebook Headed for Another Revenue Growth Slowdown?
Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) management has a history of erring on the side of caution when it comes to its financial outlook. CFO Dave Wehner warned of a deceleration in revenue growth during the company's first-quarter earnings call, and then the company reported an acceleration in growth during the second quarter. It's no surprise, then, that when Wehner said during the company's second-quarter earnings call that he still expects a deceleration in revenue growth in the back half of the year and into next year, analysts were curious if anything had actually changed.
To be sure, Facebook has already seen its revenue growth rate fall from the mid-to-high 40% range to the mid-to-high 20% range over the last year and a half. Facebook was facing various challenges during that period, including data privacy and election scandals, ad load saturation in news feed, the introduction of regulations including the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the shift in time spent to Stories products that it had barely started monetizing.
Practically all of that is in the rearview mirror at this point, and Facebook should at the very least be able to maintain its growth. So why is Wehner so cautious about the future?
Quelle Fool.com
