PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

Facebook Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap

Facebook has closed above $1 trillion in the market for the first time ever, CNBC reported.

That makes the social media giant the fifth company after Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet to reach that milestone, according to CNBC.

Facebook’s revenue almost entirely comes from personalized advertisements shown to users of Facebook and companies it owns, like Instagram, CNBC reported.

In addition, the company is working on hardware like the Portal video-calling device and Oculus’ virtual reality headsets and smart glasses. The smart glasses are slated to be released later this year, according to CNBC.

Facebook has weathered some storms as of late, CNBC reported. The social media giant has seen data leaks, false news reports and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the data firm illegally accessing 87 million Facebook users’ data to target ads for former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

But Facebook didn’t take those issues hard. It instead began to grow its base of users and increase the average amount of revenue per user, according to CNBC.

In addition, the social media giant’s stock price has risen more than 90 percent since July 27, 2018, CNBC reported.

This week, Facebook saw the dismissal of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit against the company, PYMNTS reported. The lawsuit almost forced the company to break up.

“Although the Court does not agree with all of Facebook’s contentions here, it ultimately concurs that the agency’s Complaint is legally insufficient and must therefore be dismissed,” a filing stated, per the report.

The filing added that the FTC “failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims — namely, that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking (PSN) Services.”

In addition, the filing stated the FTC didn’t provide adequate evidence showing that Facebook had a monopoly.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024