For the first time since 2015, Meta, Facebook's parent company has dropped out of the world's top 10 most valuable companies.

The social media giant founded by Mark Zuckerberg dropped by 40 percentage points after it reported a drop in its daily user base by 1 million for the first time ever.

News of the drop shredded a record $240 billion worth of market value for the company, the largest-ever drop in US history with Zuckerberg himself losing $36 billion.

Facebook has found itself under intensified competition from the likes of TikTok and Youtube who have seen their short video services grow at astronomical rates over the past few years.

"The thing that is somewhat unique here is that TikTok is so big a competitor already and also continues to grow at quite a fast rate", Mr Zuckerberg said.

Although Meta saw its shares drop again by another 13 percent placing it as the 11th most valuable company in the world, it quickly bounced back to the top 10 on Friday morning.

At the top of the list is Apple and Microsoft, followed by oil company Aramco, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, and other technology giants like Nvidia, TSMC, and Tencent.

Meta has been under serious scrutiny from regulators after it was heavily criticised for its role in facilitating the spread of misinformation during the COVID pandemic and the US election period.

This prompted the company to appoint former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg to a regulatory role that will see him oversee facebook's policy on issues like privacy and its correspondence with governments on regulatory issues.