Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, saw a slight decline in its shares on Monday following its historic one-day gain in market value. Although this may dampen the mood slightly, it does not overshadow the celebration of Facebook's 20th birthday.
In premarket trading, Meta shares were down by 0.7%, reaching $471.96. Despite this dip, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other stockholders have every reason to be cheerful. The social media giant emerged as the top performer during Big Tech's earnings week, even outshining industry giants such as Microsoft and Amazon.com.
With a current valuation of approximately $1.22 trillion, Meta has come a long way since its inception as Zuckerberg's dorm-room project in February 2004. It went public as Facebook in 2012, with its shares initially priced at $38.
To commemorate Facebook's 20th anniversary, Zuckerberg shared a celebratory video on Sunday. Meanwhile, Meta's surge in valuation propelled him to fourth place on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, surpassing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
In other tech news, Apple's Vision Pro mixed-reality headset hit stores on Friday. As expected, social media platforms were flooded with videos of users wearing the device both at home and in public. One video that went viral showed a driver purportedly wearing the headset while operating a Tesla Cybertruck. While Apple has not disclosed sales figures for the Vision Pro, sources familiar with the matter suggested that over 200,000 units were sold prior to its store release, according to MacRumors, a reputable site that covers the tech industry.
Apple's Vision Pro Sales Strong, Analyst Expects High Unit Target
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives expressed confidence in the strong sales of Apple's Vision Pro over the weekend, leading him to believe that the company is on track to achieve its target of 600,000 units by 2024. This target was originally raised from an estimate of 460,000 units before preorders.
Ives, well-known for his bullish stance on tech stocks, has set a target price of $250 for Apple stock and rates it as Outperform. Currently, Apple shares are trading at $186.15, showing a slight increase of 0.2% during premarket trading. These numbers have remained relatively stable since the release of Apple's earnings report, which indicated a projected 5% decline in March quarter revenue compared to the previous year, with iPhone sales expected to drop by nearly 10%.
While Nasdaq 100 futures and S&P 500 futures were down 0.1% and 0.2% respectively in early Monday trading, a South Korean court acquitted Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong of financial crimes related to a highly debated merger. Consequently, Samsung shares closed down by 1.2% in local trading.
In other news, Yandex, the owner of Russia's largest search engine and ride-hailing service, announced the sale of its operations in the country for 475 billion rubles ($5.22 billion) to a consortium of Russian investors, including oil major Lukoil.
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Marketer's insight: Apple's Vision Pro is making waves in the market and seems to be on track to exceed sales expectations. Furthermore, the legal developments with Samsung and Yandex's significant sale add interesting dynamics to the tech industry.
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