Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2013. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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Amazon and Snap on the up
Meanwhile, Amazon broke out its advertising revenue for the first time ever in its fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, surprising many in the process.
The e-commerce giant said its ad revenue came in at $31 billion for 2021, which is more than the $28.8 billion in ad revenue that YouTube posted for the year.
At that scale, Amazon’s ad business is also larger than several other entities in online advertising, including cloud rival Microsoft, whose CEO, Satya Nadella, disclosed last week the company’s 2021 advertising revenue exceeded $10 billion.
“I’m excited to continue innovating in areas like sponsored ads, streaming video, and measurement,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s finance chief, said during a conference call with analysts.
“Of course advertising only works if we make it useful for customers. When we create great customer experiences, we build better outcomes for brands.”
Amazon, which has also decided to increase the price of Prime by nearly 17% to $139 per year, saw its shares pop as much as 14% in extended trading on Thursday.
But that’s a fraction of the jump that Snap saw.
Evan Spiegel’s social media app, which derives almost all of its revenue from ads, saw its shares rocket as much as 62% in after hours trading on Thursday after it posted its first ever quarterly net profit.
Snap’s total revenue came to $4.12 billion for 2021, while that number was $2.58 billion for ad-reliant Pinterest, which saw its shares jump more than 25% Thursday in extended trading.
— Additional reporting by Kif Leswing, Steve Kovach and Jordan Novet.
