Facebook’s Australian profits fell to $34.7 million in the 12 months to December 31 despite a surge in revenues to more than $224 million, new accounts lodged with the corporate regulator show.
The financial documents show Facebook reported advertising sales of $1.26 billion in Australia last year – up from $1.14 billion in 2021 – although $1.03 billion was sent overseas and marked as reseller expenses.But new data released by the competition regulator suggests Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has actually banked between $4.7 billion and $5.1 billion in advertising from Australian companies for the year to June 30.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s digital platforms inquiry, which released its latest report on Friday, found Meta had “a significant degree of market power” and faced weak competition from social media rivals such as TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat. The billions of dollars of advertising revenue not disclosed in Facebook’s local accounts came from “information provided to the ACCC”, including from local companies buying ads outside the country, the regulator said.“The ACCC understands that these figures are not recorded in the ordinary course of business by Facebook Australia and are not audited, verified or otherwise reported on,” its report reads.
The figures suggest Meta accounts for about 37 per cent of the $13.9 billion in digital advertising estimated for 2022 by the sector’s peak body, the Interactive Advertising Bureau.The regulator was blunt in its assessment of social media’s competitive landscape: Meta is dominant, and its competitors are “a weak competitive constraint”.