Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is experiencing a huge surge in usage during the lockdown in Italy. The social media giant has said the average time spent on its apps increased by 70%. Jay Parikh, Vice President (Engineering) and Alex Schultz, Vice President (Analytics) of Facebook said the company is putting additional resources to maintain efficiency and stability during these hard times of the covid-19 pandemic.
Group calls surge by 1,000% in February 2020
According to a communiqué from Facebook, it has experienced a 1,000% increase in group calls on its apps in February 2020. The company is not monetizing several services though it gets 98% of its revenues from ad business. Its revenues are expected to decline despite increased usage. To cope with the growing demand in Europe, the company is offering low-quality video calls. It puts less strain on the network.
Messaging increase by 50%
Facebook is monitoring the usage trends and making changes accordingly to ensure continuity in services. People, who stay at home or in isolated places worldwide, depend heavily on Facebook products like WhatsApp and Messaging services for video and voice calls to contact colleagues, family, and friends. Messaging in nations across the world hit by the coronavirus has increased by 50%. According to Facebook, the voice calls in those nations have almost doubled.
According to Menlo Park of Facebook, the company is facing a huge challenge to keep the services up and running. Facebook has built its services to withstand spikes during events like the New Year’s Eve and Olympics. Such high usage calls are infrequent and it prepares in advance to meet the growing demand. However, the company has not anticipated very high usage in this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
Twitter says its ad revenue declines
Twitter has said its ad revenues are declining despite increased usage from people to get the latest news on COVID-19. It expects to revise the revenue guidance for Q1 2020. According to the forecast of the analysts, Facebook expects to post a jump of 22% in revenues to $18.3 billion in Q1 2020.
Amazon Prime Video reduces streaming bitrates Several people are sitting at home because of the coronavirus impact and the consumption is very high. To reduce network congestion, Amazon Prime Video is reducing the streaming bitrates.
