Is Facebook Failing in India?
When Facebook (NASDAQ: META) revealed its first-ever quarterly decline in daily users on February 2, Meta Platforms’ finance head cited increasing mobile data prices as a particular challenge impeding development in India, the company’s largest market.
On the same day, the American internet company disclosed the results of its investigation into Facebook’s operations in India on a forum for staff members. The investigation, carried out throughout the two years leading up to the end of 2021, revealed many issues.
According to the new data from Meta, many women avoid the male-dominated social network because they are concerned about their privacy and safety. According to the report, concerns about content safety and inappropriate interaction restrict women’s FB use. Meta cannot prosper in India if women are underrepresented.
According to the research, which was based on surveys of tens of thousands of individuals and internal user data, other challenges included nudity material, the perception that its app design is difficult, local language and literacy limitations, and a lack of attraction among internet users seeking video content.
Facebook Failing in The Social Media Competition
According to the report, Facebook’s growth started to plateau last year when it only added a few million users in the country of about 1.4 billion people over six months, significantly lagging sister apps WhatsApp and Instagram. The report also stated that FB had grown more slowly than the internet and other apps.
When asked about the report, a Meta representative said the firm periodically funds internal research to better understand tits products’ value and find improvement opportunities. But they said it is inaccurate to portray a 7-month-old study as an accurate or complete depiction of the company’s health in India. However, Meta’s chief financial officer, Dave Wehner, did not mention the key Indian problems covered in the report during a call with analysts on February 2 to discuss results for the last quarter of 2021.
Wehner said that competition and comparisons to recent quarters when COVID resurgences improved user engagement hurt Facebook’s user growth in Asia-Pacific and several other regions. He identified rising mobile data charges as India’s “unique” challenge.
