Facebook customers are spending much more time watching video, and short-form video like Instagram Reels is rising quick. Speaking through the firm’s second-quarter earnings name, CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that “video now accounts for almost half of all time spent on Facebook.” And on Instagram, TikTok competitor Reels is the “largest contributor to engagement growth.”

Though he stopped wanting sharing extra particular stats, the brand new particulars recommend Instagram’s Reels could also be gaining extra traction as the corporate vies for creator expertise. Zuckerberg additionally famous that the corporate’s deal with creators and purchasing would additionally assist it attain its long term aim of turning into a “metaverse company.”

Facebook revealed earlier this week that it was tapping an Instagram exec to start out a brand new staff targeted on making a metaverse. “You can kind of think about this as an embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at,” Zuckerberg mentioned. “You’re basically gonna be able to do everything that you can on the internet today, as well as some things that don’t make sense on the internet today like dancing.”

Zuckerberg’s feedback come as the corporate reported a few of its strongest progress in years, with income of greater than $29 billion, a rise of 56 % from final 12 months. The firm additionally reported greater than 3.5 billion “monthly active people,” although person progress within the US as soon as once more remained flat.

Despite the robust numbers this quarter, the corporate warned that the remainder of 2021 might look very totally different. Facebook expects income and progress to “decelerate significantly” within the second half of the 12 months, mentioned CFO Dave Wehner. He additionally famous that Apple’s iOS 14.5 replace, which permits customers to decide out of the social community’s advert monitoring, would have a “greater impact” subsequent quarter.

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