Earnings Call Transcript
Meta Platforms, Inc. (META)
Earnings Call Transcript - META Q1 2020
Operator, Operator
Good afternoon, my name is Mike and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Facebook First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Ms. Deborah Crawford, Facebook's Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin.
Deborah Crawford, Vice President of Investor Relations
Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Facebook's first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Joining me today to discuss our results are Mark Zuckerberg, CEO; Sheryl Sandberg, COO; and Dave Wehner, CFO. Before we get started, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause these results to differ materially are set forth in today's press release and in our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release. The press release and an accompanying investor presentation are available on our website at investor.fb.com. Finally, we hope that everyone listening today is staying safe. The vast majority of us at Facebook are working productively from home and everyone on this call this afternoon has dialed in remotely. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Mark.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO
All right. Thanks everyone for joining us today. Before we get started, I also just want to say that I know this is a very hard time for a lot of people. I know a lot of you are calling in from New York, where this has been particularly tough, although almost everyone has been affected by what's going on in some way. So just want to start by acknowledging that and taking a moment to thank everyone working on the front lines to help all of us get through this. There is a lot of uncertainty now about the world and what it will look like over the coming months. And Sheryl and Dave are going to give some more context on what that means for our business. The impact on our business has been significant, and I remain very concerned that this health emergency and therefore the economic fallout will last longer than people are currently anticipating. And while there are massive societal costs from the current shelter-in-place restrictions, I worry that reopening certain places too quickly before infection rates have been reduced to very minimal levels will almost guarantee future outbreaks and worse long-term health and economic outcomes. So, with that said, I want to use this time today to discuss how we're responding to COVID, what we're seeing across our services, and some reflections on how we plan to run the company going forward. So, responses have been focused on three areas; helping people stay connected while we're all apart, assisting the public health response, and working on the economic recovery especially for small businesses. And I'll start with how we are assisting the public health response. The first step here is connecting people with authoritative health information. And we built a COVID-19 information center with authoritative information from health officials and governments and messages encouraging people to stay home that are coming from public figures they trust. And we put this COVID-19 Information Center at the top of everyone's Facebook app, and so far we've directed more than 2 billion people to it. Equally important is also limiting the spread of misinformation. We don't allow content that puts people at imminent risk of physical harm. So when people share hoaxes like that inhaling water cures COVID, which is both false and will be physically harmful if anyone does that, we take that down. For other types of misinformation, we partner with independent fact-checkers who have marked more than 4,000 pieces of content related to COVID as false, which has resulted in more than 40 million warning labels being seen across our services, and we know that these work because 95% of the time when someone sees a warning label, they don't click through to view that content. Now, beyond helping people broadly access high-quality information, we're also focused on helping governments and health authorities get better data in a privacy protective way to inform key policy decisions they need to make as well. So, we partnered with Carnegie Mellon to run a widespread symptom survey on Facebook, and we're using their findings to produce daily county-by-county maps of the symptoms that people are experiencing across the country, and soon globally as well. And since people experiencing symptoms is a precursor to them going to the hospital or getting more seriously ill, this tool can help local governments and health officials plan how to allocate scarce resources like PPE and ventilators as well as determine when it's safe to start reopening an area or when an area will need to have tighter shelter orders if symptoms reemerge. And just this morning we announced that we were working to connect these symptom surveys to ground truth infection rate data from large serology in PCR studies that are funded separately by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in order to more accurately determine the true infection and exposure levels globally on a local-region basis as well. So, this is work that we're uniquely positioned to do, because Facebook is a global community and people use their authentic identities on our service, so that means that we can make sure that the data is meaningful. But we're very focused on doing this in ways that we know are going to be helpful to the health response and that protect people's privacy and human rights, which is why we've primarily focused on how aggregate data can help. Now, outside of Facebook, Priscilla and my work at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with leading experts in science and health continues to inform my views on the best ways for us to assist in this health response and also what we should expect going forward with this disease. All right, so next I want to discuss how we're helping people stay connected with the people they care about, even while we can't be together during this period. So, this is our core mission, and I'm proud of how we've supported people around the world during this time. We know that people especially rely on social apps in times of crisis and in times when we can't be together in person. And right now, we are experiencing both of those all around the world at the same time. So, we're seeing major increases in use of our services. For the first time ever, there are now more than 3 billion people actively using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger each month. That includes 2.6 billion people using Facebook alone and more than 2.3 billion people using at least one of our services every day. In many of the places that have been hardest hit by the virus, messaging volume has increased more than 50%, and voice and video calling has more than doubled across Messenger and WhatsApp. In Italy, for example, we've seen up to 70% more time spent across our apps. Instagram and Facebook Live views doubled in one week, and we've also seen time in Group video calling increase by more than 1,000% over March. Making sure that our services are stable and reliable during this period is a top priority. We're monitoring usage closely and adding capacity in our data centers where we can. The investments we've made in shared infrastructure that cover all of our different services over the years have helped us manage through this, but it has been a challenge while all our teams have been working remotely. Now I'm showing these numbers to give you a sense of the surge in people relying on these services that we're seeing. Obviously, I wish the circumstances were different. And I don't expect that this exact spike in usage will sustain over a longer period of time. But in some areas, I think we are seeing an acceleration in pre-existing long-term trends like the dramatic increase in online private social communication that is likely to continue. And if nothing else, this usage shows that for a lot of people around the world, these services are part of the social infrastructure that brings us together. Now, even before COVID-19, our product strategy was already focused on building out private social platforms and enabling online commerce. So it's well aligned with what people need now. Last week, we announced a number of new product improvements on video presence, which has emerged as an especially critical part of the private social platform during this time. Our view is that video presence includes three categories. Video calling, Video rooms and live video. And we plan to lead and offer the best services for social uses in each of those different categories. Video calling is when you actually ring a person's phone or computer and it's by far the most used type of video chat. Between WhatsApp and Messenger, there are more than 700 million daily actives participating in calls. We are doubling the size of WhatsApp video calls from four to eight. This is important because WhatsApp is the most popular end-to-end encrypted calling service. So, if you care about privacy and encryption and you want to be able to reach anyone, you're probably using WhatsApp. And now you can get your whole family or a larger group together on calls. For video rooms we announced a completely new product called Messenger Rooms. And the idea here is that you can create a room for any active event you want, send the link to your friends or have them discover your room on Facebook and then they can just drop in and hang out for a bit. And this is different from any other video presence experience because it is serendipitous. You don't have to plan on an event and schedule in advance if you don't want. But it could be much more spontaneous and fun and I've really enjoyed getting to use this as we've been building out Messenger Rooms internally, and I'm looking forward to getting it in more people's hands around the world soon. Live video is also particularly important right now. People used to primarily live stream physical events, but it's almost known as planning physical events right now live streaming has become the primary venue for many events, whether that's the Pope's weekly mass on Facebook Live or DJs hosting dance parties on Instagram, every day more than 800 million daily actives are engaging with live streams, across workout classes, concerts and more. We pivoted the Facebook events team to help people create online events including enabling people and small businesses to charge people who have joined their events in order to support small businesses that rely on in-person services. The last area of our response that I want to discuss is how we're helping with the economic recovery, especially for small businesses. Sheryl will talk about this more, but with so many businesses forced to close their physical storefronts, more are looking to build their digital presences and those which already invested in their digital presences are increasingly viewing them as the primary storefronts. So we're working on a number of ways to deepen this experience, helping people buy items and services directly within our apps. I mean we're going to a lot more to share on this soon. Overall, though, our business depends on the success of small businesses. So this is a moment where we feel that we're well positioned to be champions for small businesses' interests and supporters of important infrastructure that they're going to need in order to move online. One aspect of online commerce that I want to mention is the partnership that we just announced with Jio platforms in India. The largest Facebook and WhatsApp communities in the world are in India, and we think that there is an especially important opportunity to serve small businesses and enable commerce there over the long term. By bringing together JioMart, which is Jio's small business initiative to connect millions of shops across India with WhatsApp, we think that we're going to be able to create a much better shopping and commerce experience. And there's a lot more that we can do here, and I'm looking forward to making progress with the team at Jio. Now, beyond our immediate plans to help respond to the pandemic, I also want to share some reflections on how we're planning to run the company during this period. I have always believed that in times of economic downturn, the right thing to do is to keep investing in building the future, and I believe this for a few reasons. First, when the world changes quickly, people have new needs and that means that there are more new segments to build. Second, since many big companies will pull back on their investments, there are a lot of things that wouldn't otherwise get built that we can help deliver. And third, I believe that there is a sense of responsibility and duty to invest in the economic recovery and to provide stability for your community and stakeholders if you have the ability to do so. And we're in a fortunate position to be able to do this. Along with our strong financial position and the important social value our services provide, we're planning to hire at least 10,000 more people in product and engineering roles this year, so we can continue building and making progress. Now that said, with advertiser spending less than our business performance below expectations, we do plan to moderate some areas of our expense growth especially in business functions. We accepted our profit margins will decrease this year as we continue investing. And Dave will share more on our financial outlook in a few minutes. But this economic pullback has certainly reinforced for me the importance of maintaining high margins. Our financial position has allowed us to continue investing in building products and making investments like our partnership with Jio, even when the underlying economic conditions are challenging. As always, I am grateful to everyone on this journey with us and that's especially true during this period. As our services play an especially important role right now, in helping people stay connected and assisting the public health response and working on the economic recovery, I really want to thank all of our employees who are working hard to deliver these services and everyone who has believed in us and supported our company over the years to help us get to the point where we can deliver these services for people around the world. So, thank you. And with that, here is Sheryl to talk more about our business.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO
Thanks, Mark, and hi everyone. As Mark said, this is an extraordinarily challenging time. It's a public health emergency, a global economic crisis and a time of great anxiety and personal tragedy for so many. My heart goes out to everyone on this call who has lost someone they love, and to everyone for the many ways so many are suffering. Mark talked about how our company has responded during this emergency to keep people safe and informed, how we see our responsibilities and how we are thinking about the future. I'm going to talk more about the impact we have seen in our business and what we are doing to help other businesses survive and recover in this changing landscape. Our total ad revenue for Q1 was $17.4 billion, which is a 17% year-over-year increase. After a strong start to the quarter, we saw a significant impact on our business as a consequence of the pandemic from the second week of March onwards. This impact has not been felt evenly. We've seen strong growth in gaming and relative stability in technology and e-commerce, which is one of our largest sectors. There are few contributing factors here. First, as people stay at home, these sectors are seeing more use of their products and services. Second, advertisers in these sectors tend to optimize for measurable objectives and we are generating sales at lower prices due to the overall reduction in ad demand. On the other hand, we've seen significant declines in travel and auto as these industries have been hit particularly hard. These trends are continuing in the first two weeks of Q2, and Dave will share more on this shortly. Companies of all types are adapting to a world where people aren't walking into their stores or seeing their brand on billboards. With more people spending time on our products and services than ever before, we are focused on continuing to deliver free and paid tools to help businesses reach the right people at the right time. And on finding new ways to support those struggling to keep the lights on and pay their employees. People are looking for businesses on Facebook and Instagram more than usual during this crisis. So our free products are particularly important to many brick-and-mortar businesses pivoting quickly online. Even in the United States, before the crisis, one in three companies didn't have a website, because they can be expensive and difficult to set up even in the best of times. Our Facebook page or Instagram business profile is free and in a matter of minutes establishes a digital storefront. Many are finding creative ways to engage their customers using our free products. From Jim's offering workouts on Facebook Live to stores and restaurants using WhatsApp and Messenger to reach customers with delivery options. In Thailand, when Penguin Eat Shabu closed the doors of its nine restaurants, they started selling to-go boxes. They promoted them with Facebook posts and customers could order through Messenger and they got 350 sales in one minute. A second offer led to 2,500 hot pot sales. After initially putting their employees on unpaid leave, these sales increased their revenue and helped restore employees to full pay. Marketers of all sizes have more limited budgets. So they need to make every dollar work as hard as possible. That means measuring the value of their advertising is more important than ever, which is something our personalized ads provide. For years we have made major investments in systems and tools that enable businesses to easily understand their return on investment. In the current environment these investments are paying off. We are also launching new products to help businesses adapt to changing circumstances. Our teams moved quickly to make gift cards available on both Facebook and Instagram giving customers the option to support businesses by paying upfront for products and services they can use later. We also made it possible for people to create fundraisers for local businesses with a few simple clicks. Fundraisers have been available to support non-profits and people since 2015, but given the overwhelming interest in helping small businesses weather the storm, we made these tools available for businesses as well, something we never expected to do. We also launched temporary service changes to make it easier for businesses to share critical information like inventory updates, shipment details, or new ways to buy. For example, if a restaurant needs to shift to a delivery model, they can now add food delivery links to their Facebook page or Instagram business profile. Training these products quickly in the current environment wasn't easy and I am grateful to our product and engineering teams who are executing so well working from home. The business resource hub we launched in early May is a one-stop shop where businesses of all sizes can find support in virtual training that can help them migrate online. People can take courses on everything from how to connect with customers via messaging in Facebook Live, how to increase online sales. We are fortunate to be in a strong financial position. We can continue to pay all of our employees and contractors during this difficult time, which is why we believe we have a real responsibility to help others, especially small businesses around the world. In mid-March, we announced a $100 million grant program to help 30,000 small businesses across more than 30 countries we call home. Applications open this month and we are focused on getting cash into their hands as soon as possible. Economic crisis hit vulnerable communities the hardest, especially women, women of color, and the families who depend on them. That's why half of the grants available in the US are earmarked for women, minority, and veteran-owned businesses. We have also worked closely with the US government Small Business Administration to spread the word to small businesses about how to apply for relief loans, reaching 30 million accounts across Facebook and Instagram with this information. Businesses aren't the only ones facing hardship, newsrooms are too. At a time when critical information is needed to keep communities safe, news organizations are seeing steep declines in ad revenue. In late March, we announced a $100 million investment to support the news industry, with $25 million in grant funding for local news organizations and $75 million in marketing spend to get money to publishers. We have a responsibility to help during this uncertain time by connecting billions of people when they are separated physically, getting vital health information to people on a dramatic scale, and helping small businesses survive. I want to close by saying how grateful I am to our partners and teams around the world. During this unprecedented time, we are trying to stay closer than ever to businesses large and small as they adapt to these significant challenges. I also want to thank our teams for ensuring our services keep running and working so hard to launch new products, so we can continue making a real difference in people's lives. This is such a difficult period for everyone and we are grateful for the important work that is being accomplished by so many. Now, here's Dave.
David Wehner, CFO
Thanks Sheryl and good afternoon everyone. Echoing Mark and Sheryl's comments, my thoughts are with everyone facing challenges during this difficult and unprecedented time. Before turning to results, I wanted to comment briefly on Facebook's operating posture during the crisis. We took early action to ensure that all our employees were safe and moved to a global work from home stance on March 6, in the week prior to the WHO declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic. We are currently operating with over 95% of our full-time employees working from home with safety being the number one priority for those essential workers who need to come into our data centers and other facilities. We have been able to support our existing employees and on-board new employees throughout this period. While we are by no means operating at 100% of capacity across every dimension of our operations, we have continued to ship new product releases, maintain service availability, review content, and stay connected with our business customers. Given the circumstances, we have been pleased with the dedication and professionalism with which the Facebook team is tackling the challenges presented by this crisis. Now, turning to the results. The COVID-19 pandemic is having a broad impact on our community metrics, revenue, expenses, and business operations. Our community metrics reflected increased engagement as people around the world shelter-in-place. It's gratifying that people are using our family of apps to stay informed and connect with people and organizations that they care about. In March, we estimate that on average 2.3 billion people used at least one of our services on a daily basis and that approximately 3 billion people were active on a monthly basis. We have seen increased usage across all of our services, particularly in markets that have been most impacted by the virus, including a surge in video and voice calling on Messenger and WhatsApp. People around the world have increasingly turned to Facebook as well. Daily active users reached 1.73 billion, up 11% compared to last year. DAUs represented approximately 67% of the 2.6 billion monthly active users in March. MAUs grew 228 million or 10% compared to last year. We expect that we will lose some of this increased engagement when shelter-in-place restrictions are relaxed and life returns to a more normal cadence, which we all look forward to. Turning now to the financials. Q1 total revenue was $17.7 billion, up 18% or 19% on a constant currency basis. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant with Q1 of last year, total revenue would have been $275 million higher. Q1 ad revenue was $17.4 billion, up 17% or 19% on a constant currency basis. Again, the COVID-19 pandemic had a meaningful impact on our revenue. Revenue was strong from the beginning of the quarter through the first week of March, when we began to see a steep slowdown in our ads business, particularly in countries that implemented shelter-in-place measures to reduce the spread of the virus. As Sheryl mentioned, there was a great deal of variability by vertical. During the last three weeks of March, travel and auto were our weakest verticals and we saw relative strength in gaming, technology, and e-commerce. These trends have continued into Q2. We've seen relatively comparable pullbacks amongst large and small advertisers. COVID-19 had an impact across the globe in Q1. On a regional basis, ad revenue growth was strongest in Asia Pacific at 21%, followed by the US, Canada, Europe, and Rest of World at 16% each. Turning now to our price and volume metrics. In Q1, the total number of ad impressions served across our services increased 39% and the average price per ad decreased 16%. The growth of impressions was primarily driven by Facebook Mobile newsfeed due to product optimizations we made prior to the pandemic as well as from increased engagement that I talked about earlier. The decline in average price per ad was largely attributable to the reduction in advertiser demand during the last three weeks of March. Other revenue was $297 million, up 80% driven primarily by sales of Oculus products. As a reminder, we launched Quest in May 2019. Turning now to expenses; Q1 total expenses were $11.8 billion, up 1% on a reported basis. Excluding the $3 billion expense we recorded in Q1 related to our settlement with the FTC, Q1 of last year that is, related to our settlement with the FTC, total expenses were up 35% year-over-year. Cost of revenue increased 23% driven primarily by depreciation related to our infrastructure spend. R&D grew 40% and was driven primarily by investments in core products as well as our innovation efforts particularly in AR/VR. Marketing and sales grew 38% and was driven by consumer and growth marketing. Finally, excluding the FTC expense from Q1 of 2019, G&A grew 49%, driven partially by an increase in estimated credit losses related to COVID-19. We had over 3,300 net new hires in Q1, primarily in technical functions, and ended the quarter with over 48,000 full-time employees, up 28% compared to last year. As I mentioned earlier, we continue to recruit and onboard new employees successfully while in a work-from-home environment. Operating income was $5.9 billion representing a 33% operating margin and our tax rate was 16%. Net income was $4.9 billion or $1.71 per share. Capital expenditures were $3.7 billion driven by investments in data centers, servers, office buildings, and network infrastructure. We had $7.3 billion of free cash flow in the quarter, and we repurchased $1.2 billion of our Class A common stock. We ended the quarter with $60.3 billion of cash in investments. As I mentioned last quarter that we booked the FTC expense in 2019, we did not pay the $5 billion settlement amount until after the first quarter of 2020 closed. In addition, this past week as Mark mentioned, we signed an agreement to invest approximately $5.7 billion into Jio platforms in India. Our strong balance sheet proved to be an important asset this quarter, enabling us to commit to a long-term growth priority in India even in the midst of a troubled global economy. Turning now to the outlook. With the COVID-19 crisis, like all companies, we are facing a period of unprecedented uncertainty in our business outlook, certainly in the nearly eight years I've been with Facebook. We expect our business performance will be impacted by issues beyond our control, including the duration and efficacy of shelter-in-place orders, the effectiveness of economic stimuli around the world, and the fluctuation of currencies relative to the US dollar. On the latter point alone, since the WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, we have seen in the US dollar appreciate 5% relative to the foreign currencies we do business in. Given the increasing uncertainty in our business outlook, we are not providing specific revenue guidance for the second quarter or full year 2020, rather I would like to provide a snapshot of revenue performance in the second quarter thus far. There is a tremendous amount of macro uncertainty. So it's difficult to extrapolate performance based on a small sample of data. After initial steep decrease in ad revenue in March, we have seen signs of stability reflected in the first three weeks of April. Ad revenue has been approximately flat compared to the same period a year ago, down from the 17% year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2020. The April trends reflect weakness across all of our user geographies, as most of our major countries have had some sort of shelter-in-place guidelines in effect. We are understandably cautious given that most economists are forecasting a global GDP contraction in Q2, which if history were a guide, would suggest the potential for an even more severe advertising industry contraction. In terms of expenses, we are continuing to monitor the COVID-19 situation and its impact on our business and operations and we'll adjust to our plans accordingly. We expect to realize operational savings in certain areas such as travel, events, and marketing as well as from slower headcount growth in our business functions. However, we plan to continue to invest in product development and to recruit technical talent. In addition, we have committed over $300 million to date in investments to help our broader community during this crisis, which will have an impact on our financial performance this year. As a result, we expect total expenses in 2020 to be between $52 billion and $56 billion, down from the prior range of $54 billion to $59 billion. This reduction reflects a moderate reduction in the planned growth rate of total expenses, our overall expense growth in the face of expected revenue weakness will have a negative impact on our 2020 operating margins. Turning now to capital expenditures. Our significant investments in infrastructure over the past four years have served us well during this period of high user engagement. We plan to continue to grow our CapEx investments to enhance and expand our global infrastructure footprint over the long term. In 2020, we now expect capital expenditures to be approximately $14 billion to $16 billion, down from our prior range of $17 billion to $19 billion. This reduction reflects a significant decrease in our construction efforts related to shelter-in-place orders. Given the strong engagement growth and related demands on our infrastructure, this year's CapEx reduction should be viewed as a deferral into 2021 rather than savings. Turning now to tax. We expect our full year 2020 tax rate will be in the high teens, although we may see fluctuations in our quarterly rate depending on our financial results. Our thoughts are with those in the community who are facing health challenges during this crisis and with those healthcare workers on the front lines. We are also mindful of the challenges many businesses are facing in this crisis, including the 140 million small businesses who use our platform. Our focus is first and foremost on helping our broad community navigate these challenges. With that Mike, let's open it up for questions.
Operator, Operator
We will now open the lines for a question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Nowak from Morgan Stanley.
Brian Nowak, Analyst
Thanks for taking my questions. Hope everyone is safe. I have two. Just the first one for Sheryl or Dave. I appreciate all the color on the different ad verticals between gaming, e-commerce, travel, and autos, etc. I guess I'd be curious to hear about sort of what happened in the decline in the ad business you saw in March compared to the stability in April. Sort of what changed in those verticals? And then understanding you're not giving guidance, but talk to us about some of the key verticals that would be needed to sort of bring the business back to growth as we go throughout the year? And then the second question for Mark, you talked a little bit about SMBs. I'm curious to hear about some of the key investment areas and initiatives you really think you need to execute on to make the SMB offering more comprehensive in '21 and beyond?
David Wehner, CFO
Okay, Brian. Do you want to take that, Sheryl?
Sheryl Sandberg, COO
Why don't you go first, and I'll take the second.
David Wehner, CFO
Yes, of course. We're currently working on our coordination. So, Brian, regarding the trends we observed at the end of Q1, there was a noticeable pullback across the board, particularly in areas we discussed like travel and auto. This pullback affected both large and small advertisers. However, we did see some strength in certain categories such as gaming, where ongoing campaigns were able to take advantage of the lower pricing that cleared at the levels needed for user acquisition, demonstrating one of the benefits of the auction system. E-commerce didn't perform as strongly as gaming, but it has shown signs of stability. These trends have continued into Q2, so I wouldn't say there have been significant shifts among verticals, but e-commerce is performing reasonably well. The situation is fairly clear: advertisers focused on driving online conversion events are doing well because they can bid effectively in the auction to acquire users and achieve desired results. In contrast, those aiming for offline or broader brand awareness have experienced more of a pullback.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO
To your second question on SMBs, there’s really two parts to this. One is, what are we doing now to help SMBs weather the storm and come back to business and be able to pay their employees. And the second is the ongoing ad work we do. On the first, I think we've been really focused. We came out early with our $100 million grants program, and we're rolling it out very aggressively around the world trying to get money to people very quickly, and we're building specialized products we never would have thought of before. Fundraisers were something that we did for non-profits or people, not small businesses. So, in this very difficult time for SMBs, we're really focused on doing everything we can to help them survive and even thrive as they help transition online. SMBs are also a major part of our business going forward. And on there, it's really the execution we do quarter-after-quarter to make our ads perform. We offer very personalized ads that can be directly targeted at small groups. We do that in a very privacy-protective way and those ads are often most important for small businesses who can't afford to buy broad-based media. And so all of the work we do to continue to allow targeting, all of the work we do to make the ads more personalized, all of the work we do to make free tools available, which is important for all the online businesses who use our free tools, there are 140 million of them as well as the 8 million, who are our advertisers, and the funnel between those. That's the nuts and bolts of our business. We work on it every day. We're continuing to work on it every day through this crisis, and we'll continue beyond that.
David Wehner, CFO
Mike, we'll go to the next question.
Operator, Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Doug Anmuth from JP Morgan.
Douglas Anmuth, Analyst
Great. Thanks for taking the question. I have two, I think probably both for Mark. First, I was hoping if you could talk more about the functionality of WhatsApp and perhaps other platforms as you expand in India with the Jio platform’s partnership. Are there other markets where you could see something similar or is this strategy here unique to India? And then second, just given the increased engagement with communication tools and voice and video in particular how is that translating into increased activity in the feed and within stories? Thanks.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO
I can discuss the first question, and David can provide any relevant statistics on the second. Regarding commerce on WhatsApp, our primary goal is to enable small businesses to establish a presence across all our apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, allowing them to engage organically with users and facilitate transactions. We have begun to implement features like catalogs in WhatsApp and are developing payment options for transaction completion. Additionally, we’ve introduced a new ad format, click to messaging ads, which many small businesses are discovering yields better sales results through their messaging threads than traditional websites. They can advertise on Facebook or Instagram, directing users to chat threads. As we enhance the value of these messaging threads, we anticipate that the value of those ads will increase, which is our current perspective on this business. In India, Jio has a longstanding vision to assist millions of small businesses by connecting them to a single network for communication and online payments via WhatsApp. This serves as a significant example of how we can support small businesses in the country with the largest WhatsApp user base. The tools and technology we are developing for this partnership are part of our global strategy. We are excited to collaborate with them to advance this vision and expand it worldwide in the coming months and years. Dave, do you want to add anything about the second question? Generally speaking, we have observed an overall rise in product usage. While it’s challenging to determine whether this increase is solely linked to the pandemic or also due to a rise in video chatting and messaging, we believe that offering a diverse range of social tools adds value for users, which is essential since some services involve ads while others do not.
David Wehner, CFO
Yes. And the only thing I'd add there is, we talked about 39% increase in ad impressions and that's really driven by engagement increases on our feed products and stories products as well as the search that we've seen in the video and messaging. So it really wasn't limited to video and messaging, it was broad-based as Mark said, and that's creating supply on the ad impression side as well.
Operator, Operator
Your next question comes from Justin Post from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Justin Post, Analyst
Great, thanks. Sheryl maybe you could talk a little bit about the ad auction dynamics. Are you seeing e-commerce and digital replace auto and other categories and how efficiently is that auction working? And secondly, can you give us any color on percent of ads that come from direct response versus brand or maybe CPC bidding versus CPM? Thank you.
David Wehner, CFO
I can address that, Justin. Regarding the ad auction dynamics, we are observing that some verticals are performing better than others, and when participants drop out of the auction, we have very dynamic content that allows us to backfill with bids from different clients. We are seeing significant bidding activity from gaming and e-commerce as prices decrease, making it more economical for them to achieve their desired returns on investment. This creates a natural replacement effect, which is functioning well. The vast majority of our revenue comes from direct response advertising, though we haven't disclosed a specific percentage. For many years, direct response has been the driving force of our business, and it continues to be so. In fact, I would say that COVID has highlighted the importance of online conversion bids. Currently, we are experiencing a decline in broad-based brand advertising, while there is a greater emphasis on factors that deliver direct results, which is not unexpected given the current economic conditions.
Operator, Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Ross Sandler from Barclays.
Ross Sandler, Analyst
Just a follow-up to the last question. I think about four years ago, you mentioned that the top 100 advertisers were just under 25% of revenue and coming down. So I guess, how does that mix look today? And Dave, I think you mentioned large and small advertisers were kind of pulling back in March and into April at about the same rate, but any more pronounced desal from large versus small. Any color there? And then second question is Mark, you mentioned in your opening remarks that something along the lines of high margins are important to the company, especially given the economic environment. So, how do you think about balancing levels of investment with revenue over the long-term? As you're thinking around that changed versus I think you mentioned that comment maybe two years ago, has anything changed in the way you're thinking about margins? Thank you.
David Wehner, CFO
Hey Ross, it's Dave. I'll take that first one. Yes, we've seen sort of a pullback of advertising from both large and small advertisers. And I would say, given the uncertain economic climate, we know SMBs are getting hit hard, but our business is quite diversified and there is no one size fits all for SMBs. We've got some businesses that are obviously suffering greatly from the shelter-in-place orders and then we have SMBs, who are also digital natives and have online objectives and those are doing relatively better. So we've got SMBs, who are in gaming and e-commerce and the like. So, we are seeing I think a fairly diverse range of SMBs. And I would say in terms of the diversity of our business that's, that remains very high. We're not concentrated. But we haven't updated that specific stat that we gave back four years ago. We remain very diversified from an advertiser perspective.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO
And I can talk to the margins a bit. Overall, I think during a period like this, there are a lot of new things that need to get built. And I think it's important that rather than slamming on the brakes now, as I think a lot of companies may, that it's important to keep on building and keep on investing in building for the new need that people have and especially to make up for some of the stuffs that that other companies would pull back on, and I think that's in some ways an opportunity, in other ways, I think it's responsibility to keep on investing in the economic recovery. So that's in the near term. But the other reflection that I've had is that, I think if you're going to have a business, which is primarily advertising, which is our plan for the long term, then I think you have to recognize that advertising is more volatile and sensitive to the macro economy, and therefore if you're going to have this kind of a business, I think you really want to maintain high margins. So that way when we go through periods like this, you can make sure that we remain stable and healthy and able to keep on building the things that are important for the long term. So what I guess I'd want to just be clear on is that, we are willing to accept a reduction in margins in the near term, but we understand and I personally have an appreciation for the importance of maintaining high margins over time. So, it's not that we're going to kind of take things down this year and then continue taking things down a lot in the future. I think over the coming years if we invest a lot more now, I think we are going to look for ways to manage expenses to make sure that we can maintain high margins over time.
Operator, Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Youssef Squali from SunTrust.
Youssef Squali, Analyst
Great. Thank you very much. Two questions. Mark, can you discuss the performance of your gaming platform including Oculus so far. How satisfied are you with the traction there? And what are you doing to better position the company to take advantage of the increased engagement we're seeing on other platforms, continuing platforms and maybe Dave or Sheryl, can you speak to the trend you're seeing in markets where COVID-19 hit earlier say may be January and February, and how they are performing today and any learnings from these markets? Thank you.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO
Sure. I can discuss our gaming initiatives. We are heavily investing in several key areas, especially in our mobile apps, which are experiencing significant growth in live streaming. Live video has become a major focus, and gaming content is a rapidly expanding category that we are heavily investing in. Our recent app launches in this space have been successful, and we plan to continue our investment. On the virtual reality front, we maintain a long-term vision. The performance of Quest has exceeded our expectations, although I wish we could produce more units during this time. As people are unable to go out as much, the technology that enables a sense of presence, whether through Quest, Portal, or related video presence software, has seen a notable increase in usage. This could potentially accelerate the trend towards virtual or augmented reality. While the long-term outlook remains uncertain, I am very pleased with Quest's current performance and hope for increased production.
David Wehner, CFO
Youssef, I will address the second part of your question. The market that could provide the most insight is likely China, although our situation there is somewhat unique since we do not have users in China. Our business in that region involves Chinese advertisers targeting audiences outside of China, which makes it difficult to draw broad conclusions. Earlier in the quarter, we experienced a decline in revenue from China, but there has been a recovery since then. However, it's challenging to determine how much of that is intertwined with various sectors. For us, China is significantly connected to gaming and e-commerce, which are both focused on online outcomes and where we are observing relative strength. Therefore, it's difficult to interpret our experience there too definitively.
Operator, Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Eric Sheridan from UBS.
Eric Sheridan, Analyst
Thanks for taking the question. Maybe two if I can. One bigger picture one dovetailing all the comments around e-commerce. I'm curious if there's anything you're seeing in terms of the behavior of users on the platform that would make you want to accelerate or change the path of product development to capture some of the supply and demand you might be seeing as people want to sell in an omnichannel world and some of the demand that might be there on the buyer side to connect e-commerce broadly across Facebook's properties as an output of the current environment? And then Dave, maybe if I could just ask one quickly, I don't think you called it out, but I am curious if you could identify the credit loss assumption in the quarter and what the number might have been or is that something we might have to wait for the 10-Q for? Thanks so much.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO
I can provide a brief overview, and you can add more if necessary. We are noticing an increase in certain consumer behaviors, but more significantly, many small businesses that we support, as well as others that primarily operate physically, are making a substantial effort to establish an online presence and increase their online sales. There are many opportunities for us to assist them in developing the necessary tools. We are observing a trend of businesses that primarily operated in person starting to sell online for the first time, along with others that had an online presence shifting to make that their main focus. While there may be some short-term fluctuations, I believe this aligns with a longer-term pattern. We intend to expedite this aspect of our product development to better serve these businesses during this critical recovery period. We are actively working on numerous initiatives and hope to provide more updates in the upcoming weeks.
David Wehner, CFO
Yes, Eric, on the bad debt expense that increased by $193 million. So that will be the number that's in the Q and the majority of that relates to charges. Obviously, that we're taking related to the COVID-19 pandemic in our views on collectability of certain accounts in that environment.
Operator, Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney from RBC.
Mark Mahaney, Analyst
Thanks. Two questions. Mark at the very beginning, you talked about the economic fallout possibly lasting longer than people think. Just any detail behind that. Is there something you're seeing in the data that you've got reaction? And then following up a little bit on Eric Sheridan's question, these kind of events, crises can create new, I don't know paths or whatever. So you talked about shopping. What about WhatsApp there's a surge in usage of WhatsApp. Is there something that's happened that makes it more interesting for long-term more interesting as a monetization vehicle because of the surge in usage of WhatsApp? Thanks.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO
Yes, I can address those two points. I believe we will experience a significant economic downturn during the health emergency. As Dave mentioned earlier, the effectiveness of the shelter-in-place orders will greatly influence how long and severe the economic consequences will be. There is definitely a range of possible outcomes, and I don’t have any special insights that aren’t already publicly available. However, I am concerned that the situation could turn out to be worse than some are anticipating. Regarding monetization on WhatsApp, there is a vast opportunity here, especially considering it has 2 billion users and we have not yet fully developed the business aspect. We have implemented some tools, but we are still in the early stages of building WhatsApp Business. Many businesses are already signed up and actively using it. There is strong demand for communication between consumers and businesses, and we are working on developing the necessary infrastructure for payments and further commerce. Features like click-to-messaging ads are performing well. All indicators suggest a positive trend; however, this remains a largely untapped opportunity, and I am excited to see it grow in the coming years.
David Wehner, CFO
I think Deborah is trying to say that there is one last question.
Deborah Crawford, Vice President of Investor Relations
Yes. Thank you.
David Wehner, CFO
If we could just take one last question, please.
Operator, Operator
Your last question comes from the line of Colin Sebastian from Baird.
Colin Sebastian, Analyst
Great. Thanks for taking my question. First, Dave, I was hoping for any updated thoughts or timeline on the targeting and measurement challenges you mentioned during the last call, even though I know this isn't a key focus right now. Additionally, regarding the ongoing investment priorities and the slower growth in headcount, could you clarify which areas are experiencing that slowdown compared to those receiving full support? Thank you.
David Wehner, CFO
Sure, Colin, I can address both of those. The targeting challenges are affecting the business, but they are overshadowed by the current impact of COVID-19. We are still observing three key factors regarding targeting, and this situation has not changed due to regulatory pressures like GDPR and CPPA, along with similar regulations. Additionally, changes by platforms that complicate third-party targeting and measurement, as well as our own initiatives to implement privacy controls, are factors in this scenario. These issues are impacting the entire industry, and we believe we are fairly well positioned because we have a strong amount of first-party data. However, I think this will have a significant effect on return on investment and may hinder advertisers' ability to effectively find and acquire customers, which could slow their growth compared to what it might have been, consequently affecting their overall growth and revenue, and ultimately ours as well. It is undoubtedly a challenging time that makes it harder for businesses to expand, and we continue to face this headwind in the long term.
Deborah Crawford, Vice President of Investor Relations
Great. Thank you for joining us.
David Wehner, CFO
And I'm sorry, I forgot investment priorities. We're continuing to focus on recruiting on the tax side. So product and engineering. So we're sort of fully going down that path. That's was our core product and innovation efforts. And we are slowing down headcount in business function. So some of the functions related to things like advertising sales is slower in those departments, given the overall economic climate. And then there are certain areas that we're just finding efficiencies; there's less travel, there's less entertainment. And I think that may persist for quite some time. So we're seeing savings there and we're going to be looking at getting marketing efficiencies because obviously prices are coming down on the marketing front, so that we can get the same impact for less dollars and also look for efficiencies on marketing spend. So those are the areas that I would call out.
Deborah Crawford, Vice President of Investor Relations
Right. Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your time. Stay safe everybody, and we look forward to speaking with you again.
David Wehner, CFO
Thanks, everybody.
Operator, Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.