Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) today reported financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2020.

“We had a strong end to the year as people and businesses continued to use our services during these challenging times,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “I’m excited about our product roadmap for 2021 as we build new and meaningful ways to create economic opportunity, build community and help people  just have fun.”

 Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Financial Highlights

Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Operational and Other Financial Highlights

• Facebook daily active users (DAUs)  — DAUs were 1.84 billion on average for December 2020, an increase of 11% year-over-year.
• Facebook monthly active users (MAUs)  — MAUs were 2.80 billion as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 12% year-over-year.
• Family daily active people (DAP)  — DAP was 2.60 billion on average for December 2020, an increase of 15% year-over-year.
• Family monthly active people (MAP)  — MAP was 3.30 billion as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 14% year-over-year.
• Capital expenditures  — Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $4.82 billion and $15.72 billion for the fourth quarter and full year of 2020, respectively.
• Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities  — Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $61.95 billion as of December 31, 2020.
• Headcount  — Headcount was 58,604 as of December 31, 2020, an increase of 30% year-over-year.

In January 2021, the Board of Directors authorized incremental share repurchases of up to an additional $25  billion of our shares of Class A common stock. This authorization is in addition to the previously authorized repurchases of up to $34 billion of our shares of Class A common stock. As of the end of 2020, $8.6  billion remained on the previous share repurchase authorization.

CFO Outlook Commentary

We continue to face significant uncertainty as we manage through a number of cross currents in 2021.

We believe our business has benefited from two broad economic trends playing out during the pandemic. The first is the ongoing shift towards online commerce. The second is the shift in consumer demand towards products and away from services. We believe these shifts provided a tailwind to our advertising business in the second half of 2020 given our strength in product verticals sold via online commerce and our lower exposure to service verticals like travel. Looking forward, a moderation or reversal in one or both of these trends could serve as a headwind to our advertising revenue growth.

At the same time, in the first half of 2021, we will be lapping a period of growth that was negatively impacted by reduced advertising demand during the early stages of the pandemic. As a result, we expect year-over-year growth rates in total revenue to remain stable or modestly accelerate sequentially in the first and second quarters of 2021. In the second half of the year, we will lap periods of increasingly strong growth, which will significantly pressure year-over-year growth rates.

We also expect to face more significant ad targeting headwinds in 2021. This includes the impact of platform changes, notably iOS 14, as well as the evolving regulatory landscape. While the timing of the iOS 14 changes remains uncertain, we would expect to see an impact beginning late in the first quarter.

There is also continuing uncertainty around the viability of transatlantic data transfers in light of recent European regulatory developments, and like other companies in our industry, we are closely monitoring the potential impact on our European operations as these developments progress.

We expect 2021 total expenses to be in the range of $68-73 billion, unchanged from our prior outlook. This is driven by investments in technical and product talent as well as continued growth in infrastructure costs.

We continue to expect 2021 capital expenditures to be in the range of $21-23 billion, driven by data centers, servers, network infrastructure, and office facilities. Our outlook includes spend that was delayed from 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic on our construction efforts.

We continue to expect our full-year 2021 tax rate to be in the high-teens.

In a statement Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive was positive.

“We had a strong end to the year as people and businesses continued to use our services during these challenging times,” he said. “I’m excited about our product road map for 2021.

Source: Facebook