Facebook’s parent company Meta Networks says DAUs fell to 1.929bn in the three months to the end of December, compared to 1.930bn in the previous quarter.

The firm also warned of slowing revenue growth in the face of competition from rivals like TikTok and YouTube, while advertisers are also cutting spending.

Meta’s shares slumped by more than 20% in after-hours trading in New York.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the firm’s sales growth had been hurt as audiences, especially younger users, had left for rivals.

Meta, which owns the world’s second biggest digital advertising platform after Google, also said it had been hit by privacy changes on Apple’s operating system.

The changes have made it harder for brands to target and measure their advertising on Facebook and Instagram and could have an impact “in the order of $10 billion” for this year, according to Meta’s chief financial officer Dave Wehner.

Meta’s total revenue, the bulk of which comes from advertising sales, rose to $33.67bn in the period, narrowly beating market predictions.

It also forecast revenues of between $27bn to $29bn for the next quarter, which is lower than analysts had expected.

While the company has been making its own investments in video to compete with TikTok -owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance – it makes less money from those offerings than its traditional Facebook and Instagram feeds.

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