Facebook India Online Services, the flagship registered entity for Meta in India, clocked gross ad revenues of ₹16,189 crore in fiscal year 2021-22, a 74% year-on-year growth as per the latest regulatory filings by the company.
The company’s net profit grew by 132% year on year to ₹297 crore during the same period.

Facebook India Online Services ended up paying a ₹907 crore equalisation levy to the government on the gross ad revenues in fiscal year 2021-22, as per the RoC filings. Facebook India purchases advertisement space from Meta Platforms Inc USA.

When selling to their Indian customers, Meta India applies some markup to the cost of goods sold.

For Meta India, ₹15,120 crore was the cost of ad inventory.

Meta India’s total income in fiscal year 2021-22 was ₹2,324 crore, which includes net advertiser reseller revenue (₹889 crore), IT-ITeS services (₹1,420 crore) and other income (₹15 crore), as per the filings.

The company’s net profit is earned from this net income.

In fiscal year 2020-21, the company clocked gross ad revenues of ₹9,326 crore and posted a net profit of ₹128 crore on an income of ₹1,481 crore. In fiscal year 2019-20, the tech major clocked a net profit of ₹136 crore on an income of ₹1,216 crore. Media buyers familiar with matters at both Meta and Google, said the gap between the two is shrinking.

“Google reported gross ad revenues of around ₹13,887 crore last year, and Meta has reported gross ad revenues of ₹16, 189 crore for fiscal year 2021-22. The gap between the two seems to be decreasing. If you look at Meta’s growth, it has been more than Google’s growth every year,” said a media buyer who works with both platforms.

Another buyer said Reels has driven growth on Instagram, videos has driven growth overall, and the growth of Meta’s platforms in general has been more.

“The pandemic drove digitisation and this growth has come despite the peakwave of Delta when the economy almost came to a halt for a few months. Ithink a lot of the growth has been driven by smaller businesses and newventures. From an industry point of view, consumer tech, CPG, fi nancialservices and the whole direct to consumer category has done really well for theMeta properties,” the person said.

According to industry insiders, Google and Facebook continue to roughlycorner over 70% of the digital advertising pie in India, and this has been thecase for the last few years, indicating a duopoly that has only beenstrengthening.

Globally, Meta Platforms Inc reported revenue of $28.82 billion in Q2 2022,down from $29.07 bilion a year ago.