Apple’s privacy features to cost Facebook $12.8 bn in 2022

Months after tech giant Apple launched App Tracking Transparency (ATT), a new analysis has predicted its second year will still see major disruption to advertisers, with Facebook, YouTube and more collectively losing around $16 billion.

According to AppleInsider, the tech giant released its feature in iOS 14 on April 26, last year, and it immediately had an impact on companies relying on advertising revenue.

Then Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg reported that his company would see a $10 billion revenue hit in 2022. In October 2021, Snapchat’s parent company Snap saw its stock price fall 25 per cent over fears regarding the impact of ATT.

Now a new analysis by research firm Lotame said that ATT is continuing to have an impact — even though it is lessening.

Alongside ATT, Apple deprecated its old IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) technology, but it has introduced new frameworks to help advertisers, and they appear to be being adopted.

“[For its second year] we think the IDFA change will have an impact on the companies of nearly $16 billion,” said Lotame in its report.

“Again with the lion’s share of that impact (81 per cent) coming from Facebook,” it added.

That 81 per cent for Facebook represents an estimated $12.8 billion.

Lotame estimated the rest of the lost revenue as $546 million for Snap, $323 million for Twitter and $2.2 billion for YouTube.

However, Lotame described both Snap and Twitter as having “largely shrugged off” the situation. Each is adapting to using the new measurement systems provided by Apple, for instance.

Then, too, Facebook is working to decrease its reliance on Apple and is reportedly providing advertisers with new tools.