People forget that stock buybacks also create a pool of equity for employee compensation, it isn't just about returning capital tax effectively
Historically their buyback has only compensated for employee equity comp, not much more. That probably changes a bit going forward
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform...
They were mostly flat in 2018-2020. They were down 4% in 2021 and 5% in 2022.
Looks like you're referencing YoY rates as measured on a quarterly basis from the link above, which is not the same as the absolute percentage of shares.
Likely the pace will rise somewhat with recent job cuts/buybacks, but historically they've mostly just tread water with shares issued via software based comp
That seems compatible with what I said (flat 2018-2020, down 4% in 2021 and 5% in 2022).
> Looks like you're referencing ...
https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2020/ar...
As of December 31, 2020, there were 2,406 million shares of Class A common stock and 443 million shares of Class B common stock issued and outstanding.
As of December 31, 2021, there were 2,328 million shares of Class A common stock and 413 million shares of Class B common stock issued and outstanding.
We don't have the end of year figures yet but from the Q3 report:
https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/d3f3edd...
2,248,672,204 shares outstanding as of October 21, 2022
402,876,470 shares outstanding as of October 21, 2022
Class A shares [...] 2,262 million [...] outstanding, as of September 30, 2022
Class B shares [...] 403 million [...] outstanding, as of September 30, 2022
Weighted-average shares used to compute earnings per share attributable to Class A and Class B common stockholders (Three Months Ended December 31, 2022): Basic 2,638
Sep 30: 2665
Oct 21: 2652
Q4 average: 2638
Dec 31: ~2615 ?2614. Not bad!
8.2% fewer outstanding shares than two years ago. If that’s “mostly flat” so be it.