Facebook Admits Some Decrease Of Usage Amongst Young Teens For The First Time, from TechCrunch Facebook may be feeling the pinch from teen-focused, mobile-first social networks like Snapchat, as CFO David Ebersman said on today’s earnings call that Facebook “did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens,” though he prefaced that saying “usage of Facebook among US teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3.” This is the first time Facebook has reported real trouble with teens. Facebook did say that “We remain close to fully penetrated among teens in the US,” (eww, terrible phrasing) and noted there wasn’t a ton of data supporting the drop with young teens. On the data, Ebersman said “This is of questionable significance … but we wanted to share this with you now because we get a lot of questions about teens.” The grim notes on young teens come after Facebook had denied losing luster with teens last quarter. Mark Zuckerberg said in July that “One specific demographic I want to address is U.S. teens. There’s been a lot of speculation and reporting that fewer teens are using Facebook, but based on our data that just isn’t true.” But the social landscape is rapidly shifting. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in September that it sees 350 million “snaps” (photos and videos) sent per day. That’s equal to the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per day. Of course, some teens may be shifting their attention to Instagram, which Facebook owns. Still, analyst Ben Bajarin confirms that his research shows Facebook is losing usage amongst teens in core demographics like the U.S. As soon as Facebook reported the news about teens, its share price took a nose dive. At around 5:20 EST when Ebersman discussed teens, its price suddenly sank. This wiped out the billions of dollars in valuation gain Facebook scored from the 15 percent share price climb Facebook made in after-hours trading based on the strong financial info for the quarter it released at 4pm EST. Facebook had a strong beat of estimates, hitting $2.02 billion in revenue, $0.25 EPS, with 49 percent of ad revenue now from mobile. The news about teens was clearly hard on Facebook but could be a boon to Snapchat, which is reportedly trying to close a big round of funding of around $200 million at a valuation between $3 billion and $4 billion. That could be easier, or Snapchat’s valuation could rise thanks to signs Facebook is losing teens — Snapchat’s core demographic.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 09:04:20 +0000
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