Facebook is losing users for the first time ever as parent company Meta reports decline

A day after Facebook reported that its streak of user growth has come to an end, the company's stock is tanking.

Parent company Meta reported Wednesday the social media juggernaut experienced a decline in daily active users during the fourth quarter. It's the first time ever Facebook has reported a dip in that category.

For the fourth quarter, Facebook had 1.929 billion daily active users compared to 1.93 billion in the previous quarter.

Shares of Meta plunged more than 26% in Thursday afternoon trading.

In prepared remarks made before Meta's quarterly earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited competition, notably TikTok.

"People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly," he said.

Meta is investing more into short-form videos to better compete with TikTok, including Reels, which the company launched on Instagram in 2020.

Facebook’s chief financial officer David Wehner also blamed an increase in internet data prices in India, its largest market.

Meta reported a sharp increase in costs as it builds its metaverse project Zuckerberg has claimed could eventually replace the internet. The costs combined with a weak revenue forecast scared investors, knocking almost $200 billion off the valuation of the company.