If You Invested $1000 in Meta Platforms a Decade Ago, This is How Much It'd Be Worth Now
How much a stock's price changes over time is important for most investors, since price performance can both impact your investment portfolio and help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
FOMO, or the fear of missing out, also plays a role in investing, particularly with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in Meta Platforms (META) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to META for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
Meta Platforms' Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at Meta Platforms' main business drivers.
Meta Platforms is the world’s largest social media platform. The company’s portfolio offering evolved from a single Facebook app to multiple apps like photo and video sharing app Instagram and WhatsApp messaging app owing to acquisitions. Along with in-house developed Messenger, these apps now form Meta’s family of products used by almost 3.98 billion people on a monthly basis as of Dec 31, 2023.
Newly introduced metric, which is the family daily active people (DAP) that measures daily users of its family of products, was 3.19 billion, as of Dec 31.
Meta uses metrics like daily active users (DAUs) and monthly active users (MAUs) to measure Facebook’s user base. As of Dec 31, 2023, DAUs and MAUs were 2.11 billion and 3.065 billion, respectively.
Headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, Meta generated revenues worth $134.9 billion in 2023. Advertisement accounted for 97.8% of revenues. Marketers buy ads that can appear on multiple platforms including Meta, Instagram, Messenger and third-party applications and websites.
Meta, thanks to its huge user base gained a significant market share in the advertising space wherein it faces tough competition from Google, Twitter, Amazon and Snapchat-parent Snap.
Meta also faces significant competition from the likes of Apple (messaging), YouTube (advertising and video), Bytedance (social media) and Tencent (messaging and social media).
Meta core app enables people to connect, share, discover and communicate with one other on mobile devices and personal computers. User engagement on core Meta platform is fostered by News Feed that displays an algorithmically-ranked series of stories and advertisements customized for each user.
Instagram is a community for sharing photos, videos and messages, enabling people to discover interests that they care about. People can express themselves through photos, videos and private messaging via Instagram Feed and Stories.
Messenger helps people to connect with friends, family, groups and businesses across platforms and devices. WhatsApp is a simple, reliable and secure messaging application, used by people and businesses around the world to communicate in a private way.
Meta also offers virtual reality (VR) products through its Oculus division.
Bottom Line
While anyone can invest, building a lucrative investment portfolio takes research, patience, and a little bit of risk. If you had invested in Meta Platforms ten years ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in March 2014 would be worth $7,182.83, or a 618.28% gain, as of March 19, 2024. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.
The S&P 500 rose 175.04% and the price of gold increased 56.16% over the same time frame in comparison.
Analysts are forecasting more upside for META too.
Meta is benefiting from steady user growth across all regions, particularly Asia Pacific. Increased engagement for its offerings like Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook has been a major growth driver. The company is leveraging AI to recommend Reels content, which is driving traffic on Instagram and Facebook. Its innovative portfolio, which includes Threads, Reels, Llama 2, Ray-Ban Meta smart glass, and mixed reality device Quest 3 is likely to aid prospects. Reels continued to do very well across both Instagram and Facebook driven by growing adoption. People reshared Reels 3.5 billion times every day during the fourth-quarter. However, challenging macroeconomic conditions remain a headwind for Meta’s advertising revenues. Slow monetization of Reels, along with mounting operating losses at Reality Labs, are concerns.
The stock is up 5% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 15 higher, for fiscal 2024. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) : Free Stock Analysis Report
