LONDON: Wall Street is bracing for the slowest global revenue growth in the history of the social media sector, as intensifying competition from TikTok and Apple in advertising threaten to compound economic woes in the second quarter.
The dour expectations come after a blowout 2021, when social media ad sales in the United States grew 36 percent to reach $58 billion as brands increased marketing budgets to recover from the pandemic and reach customers online.
But social media platforms have since warned investors and employees that the tide is turning as inflation lingers around 40-year highs, an environment where brands spend less on advertising.
Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told employees last month the company was slashing hiring plans and that “this might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history.”
Snap Inc, which owns Snapchat and is due to report earnings after the close, earlier said it expected to miss its own quarterly revenue forecast due to deteriorating economic conditions.
Global social media ad sales are now expected to grow by 11 percent, the slowest pace on record, according to media intelligence firm MAGNA, which downgraded the growth forecast from 18 percent.
Analysts had expected some degree of slowing growth after 2021. However, growing competition from viral short-form video app TikTok and Apple has created a “perfect storm” and “investors are rightfully wary” about digital ad growth this year, wrote Barclays analysts in a research note this month.
Apple had already upended the digital ad industry when it introduced new iPhone privacy controls last year that hurt the ability for companies like Meta and Snap to target and measure ads on their apps.
Apple’s own advertising business, which mostly consists of developers paying to promote their app on the App Store, is expected to grow 36 percent this year to $6.9 billion, Barclays wrote, adding that Apple and TikTok together will take 34 percent of every new ad dollar that is spent outside China this year.
Lior Eldan, chief operating officer of mobile app marketing agency Moburst, which has worked with brands like Uber and Reddit, said clients are now spending about two to three times more on Apple ads, in part because the effectiveness of ads on other platforms has been degraded by Apple’s privacy changes.
“We’ve seen dramatic increases in budgets on Apple search ads following the privacy changes,” he said.
While still much smaller than behemoths like Facebook and YouTube, TikTok is poised to grow over 200 percent to become a $12 billion business, Barclays wrote.
TikTok remains important for many clients’ advertising strategies, said Yvonne Williams, vice president of media at ad agency Code3, which has worked with brands like Gap and Dior.
Alphabet’s Google, which reports second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, is the company most likely to be shielded from negative effects, because Google Search is “mission critical” for many advertisers, analysts from RBC Capital Markets said in a note on Tuesday.
Meta, Snap and Pinterest are more exposed to the Apple privacy changes and competition from TikTok, Barclays said.
Social media revenue growth expected to slow as TikTok, Apple compete
https://arab.news/n2yx5
Social media revenue growth expected to slow as TikTok, Apple compete
- Global social media ad sales are now expected to grow by 11 percent, the slowest pace on record, according to media intelligence firm MAGNA, which downgraded the growth forecast from 18 percent.
Lebanon’s official media scale back Hezbollah coverage after Cabinet ban
- Information Minister Paul Morcos instructs outlets to comply with government decision
- Journalists, social media urged to avoid content that could provoke hate speech, incitement
BEIRUT: Lebanon has begun implementing a Cabinet decision taken earlier this month to ban Hezbollah’s security and military activities by scaling back coverage of the group on official media platforms.
The measure, which was described in political circles as a significant and bold step, came after decades during which news about the party and the speeches of its leaders were published verbatim and broadcast live through official media outlets, like the state-run National News Agency, TV station Tele Liban and Radio Lebanon.
“No one is imposing censorship,” an official source told Arab News.
“Rather, there is a commitment to the decisions of the state. It is no longer possible for a speech that attacks the Lebanese government and the state to be published through its official media outlets.”
Information Minister Paul Morcos issued a circular instructing directors of official media outlets to comply with the government’s decision to ban the broadcast of speeches or statements by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem and statements issued by the group’s armed wing, particularly when they contain criticism of the state.
Morcos also ordered that Hezbollah statements be handled in the same manner as those issued by other political parties, meaning they should not be published verbatim. He further instructed media outlets to avoid using the term “Islamic resistance,” except when it appears directly within Hezbollah statements.
The first manifestations of the decision were Tele Liban’s abstention from live broadcasting a speech by Qassem and a statement made on Tuesday by lawmaker Mohammed Raad, who heads the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc.
The group’s supporters described the move as an attempt “to restrict the resistance, Hezbollah and its leadership in the official media.”
Some argued on social media that preventing the use of terms like “resistance” or “holy warriors (Mujahedin)” and replacing them with expressions such as “Hezbollah” and “fighters” was “aimed at brainwashing and stripping the party of its resistance identity.”
During a Cabinet session on Thursday, Morcos raised the issue of content circulating on social media that incites murder and sectarian strife. This comes against the backdrop of the war that Hezbollah waged from Lebanon against Israel on March 2, without state approval, which led to a sharp division in Lebanese public opinion.
Morcos, who is also Cabinet spokesperson, said after the session that what was being published “exceeds the bounds of freedom of opinion, the press and expression.”
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam considered it to fall under the penal code, specifically regarding crimes that harm national unity, he said, and that “we are against strife in all its forms.”
Morcos also urged journalists, influencers and social media users to remain aware of the sensitivity of the current situation and to avoid content that could provoke strife, hate speech or incitement.
He acknowledged, however, that, according to a legal study, he has no authority over social media, even on media-related matters.
“The Ministry of Information does not exercise a guardianship role and lacks judicial police powers,” he said.
“These authorities rest with the public prosecution offices, which are overseen by the minister of justice and fall within the domain of criminal law and criminal prosecution.”
The ban was agreed during a Cabinet session on March 2, after Hezbollah launched six rockets from Lebanese territory toward northern Israel, the first such attack since the November 2024 ceasefire, prompting retaliatory strikes.
The Cabinet reaffirmed that “the decision of war and peace rests exclusively with the Lebanese state and its constitutional institutions,” and called on Hezbollah to hand over its weapons to the state while limiting its role to political activity within the legal and constitutional framework.
