What Meta Really Means About ‘Worse’ Service for Europeans
The social media platform stands to make significantly less money from advertising to the region’s users.
Still not in compliance.
Photographer: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images
Meta Platforms Inc.’s earnings release on Wednesday — which investors were broadly pleased with — came with a paragraph that attracted some attention. In its forward-looking guidance, Meta said:
Of course, what Meta mostly means when it says “materially worse for European users” is that it now expects to make significantly less money from them. On the investor call, Chief Financial Officer Susan Li would not share much more other than to point out that the region affected by the DMA was responsible for 16% of the company’s revenue in 2024 — about $26 billion. The implication was that figure could fall this year unless Meta can win an appeal or bring the European Commission around to its way of thinking. One hope might be that the Trump administration might apply some pressure.