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Five charts to start the day

Good morning – here are your five chart for the day.

Do you remember when Facebook first launched back I think in 2005? For most people, it was their first social media experience. We got in touch with school friends, colleagues and those we had lost contact with over the years. It was amazing and nearly everyone was on it. In the early days, you could post, and you could upload your photos for everyone to see. And then as time went by, Facebook got more complicated and most of the people I know stopped using it. Nevertheless, Facebook never disappeared and has remained profitable. That is what this first chart is about.

CHART 1 • Meta's revenue machine leaves rivals in the dust

Meta extracts an eye-watering $26.73 from each North American user every month, making competitors look like charity cases by comparison. Snap manages just $2.78, whilst Reddit and Pinterest scrape by with $2.62 and $2.43 respectively – a tenth of Meta's haul from the same eyeballs.

This staggering monetisation gap reflects Meta's unrivalled advertising sophistication across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, now reaching 3.5 billion daily users globally. With Instagram alone generating $32 billion in US ad revenue this year – surpassing 50% of Meta's total for the first time – the company has perfected the art of turning attention into cash.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive AI push is only widening the moat. Gemini usage has exploded 35-fold year-on-year, while AI Overviews now serve 2 billion monthly users. The gulf is particularly brutal for competitors as a potential TikTok ban looms, with Instagram positioned to capture over a fifth of reallocated ad dollars. Meta's Q2 revenue hit $47.5 billion, up 22%, with net profit soaring 36% to $18.3 billion – proof that when it comes to mining user value, nobody else comes close.

Source: Chartr

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