Shares in Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have plunged more than 20% after a downbeat set of results from the tech giant.

It comes as investor doubts about Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future grow, and revenues and profits decline.

Meta’s sales shrank by 4% in the three months ending in September to $27.7bn (£24bn), while profits halved.

The fall in shares is set to wipe $78bn off the firm’s market value if the losses hold until the end of Thursday.

What’s gone wrong?

A year ago, Mark Zuckerberg declared virtual reality the next frontier to drive Facebook’s growth. But so far, there has been very little of it.

The company, which also owns WhatsApp, is struggling as companies cut advertising budgets in the face of economic uncertainty, changes to Apple’s privacy settings hurt its targeted ads, and competition from rivals such as TikTok heats up.

Mr Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook at university almost two decades ago, acknowledged the firm faced “near-term challenges”.

-BBC