Meta’s India ad revenue crosses $2 billion in FY22

Meta’s India unit has more than doubled its profits and witnessed a significant surge in its total revenue for the financial year 2021-22 as the Facebook parent benefited from increased digital adoption after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company posted a net profit of Rs 297 crore for the financial year 2021-22, a 132 percent increase from Rs 128.2 crore a year back, as per the company’s latest filing with the Registrar of Companies.

Total income grew to Rs 2,324 crore for the financial year, posting a 56.5 percent jump from Rs 1,485.1 crore in the previous financial year. The gross advertising revenue saw a 74 percent on-year surge to Rs 16,189 crore during the period.

Facebook India is a non-exclusive reseller of advertising inventory to customers in India. It also provides IT/ITeS, marketing and other support services to the Meta group entities.

Net advertiser reseller revenue stood at Rs 889.4 crore for the financial year, a 40 percent increase from Rs 636.5 crore in the previous fiscal. These revenues comprise primarily of advertising revenues generated by displaying ad products on Meta’s family of products including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and third party affiliated websites and mobile apps.

The company said it generated Rs 1,420 crore from providing ITES services during the financial year, up from Rs 844.1 crore in the previous year.

In terms of expenses, the social networking giant saw its employee benefit expense increase to Rs 421.1 crore in FY22 from Rs 318 crore in FY21 while its advertising promotional expenses grew to Rs 240.5 crore for FY22 from Rs 164 crore in FY21.

The social networking giant also paid an equalisation levy of Rs 907.2 crore to the government during the fiscal, which is 6 percent of their gross ad revenues, as per the filing.

These developments come at a time when Meta is grappling with its first-ever revenue drop in Q2 2022 due to Apple’s iOS 14 privacy policy changes and a weak digital advertising market.

Apple’s privacy changes have made it harder for companies such as Meta to offer targeted advertising. Meanwhile, rising inflation and uncertainty around a looming recession along with other macro environment challenges has resulted in advertisers cutting back their ad spends this year.

“We seem to have entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business. It’s always hard to predict how deep or how long these cycles will be, but I’d say that the situation seems worse than it did a quarter ago,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings conference call on July 27.

As per a Bloomberg report last month, Zuckerberg has announced a company-wide hiring freeze as well restructuring of some teams to reduce costs, while warning of potential downsizing in the future. Moneycontrol