Facebook’s business is getting a boost because more companies are relying on digital platforms in the Corona crisis. The turnover of the online network, which is mainly achieved with advertising, rose by 22 percent in the past quarter 21, $ 2 billion. The bottom line was a profit of $ 7 85 billion dollars – an increase of 29 percent. Contributed to this was a tax credit of well 900 million dollars in research and development spending.

Small and medium-sized businesses make up a large proportion of Facebook advertisers. Many of them – such as cafes or restaurants – have been hit hard by the pandemic. As a result, it was feared that they would cut their advertising spending. At the same time, there was an advertising boycott of large customers in July in protest against hate speech on the platform.

The fact that Facebook is still recording solid growth is also due to the fact that small and medium-sized companies increasingly go online in search of new business opportunities during the crisis. Facebook’s advertising business was driven by this accelerated change from traditional to online trading, stressed CFO Dave Wehner. Facebook quickly developed a trading platform. Sheryl Sandberg, the top manager responsible for the operational business, cited a family company that otherwise sold soaps from its own production at weekly markets. In the pandemic, she is now using Facebook as a platform and has expanded her business.

Facebook builds on the argument that the online network plays a role worth protecting for the economy during the crisis. Against this background, Facebook criticized, among other things, Apple’s plans for privacy on the iPhone, in which the users of each app should allow tracking for advertising purposes. This could prevent Facebook from collecting data on a user across different apps and thus personalizing the advertising more precisely. He was concerned that such restrictions or EU data protection plans “could have a significant negative impact on small businesses and the economic recovery in 2021 or beyond “, said founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg.

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30 Millions more users The number of daily active Facebook User increased within three months 30 million to around 1, 82 billions. However, the number of users in the USA and Canada were “slightly down” compared to the second quarter, according to Facebook. In the second quarter, the number of users initially rose sharply due to the effects of the corona pandemic. Now they are falling again in the third quarter, explains Facebook. For the fourth quarter, Facebook expects further slight decreases in user numbers in the US home market and Canada.

At least one app from the group – such as Instagram and WhatsApp – access 2 every day, 54 Billion users back.

The share price of the Facebook share traded on the NASDAQ rose by around 1.5 percent to as a reaction to the quarterly figures. , 61 dollars back.

( with material from dpa) / (olb)