Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is raking in digital ads, as its earnings attest, and Wall Street is rewarding it. The company’s stock rose about 7% in after-hours trading Wednesday.
Meta
META,
reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $7.79 billion, or $2.98 a share, compared with net income of $6.7 billion, or $2.46 a share, in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue climbed 11% to $32 billion from $28.8 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected on average net income of $2.91 a share on revenue of $31.1billion.
Also see: Zuck beats Musk at his own game with Meta’s year of efficiency
A rebound in advertising, the monetization of Instagram and Reels, and AI-fueled ad targeting and measurement contributed to the quarter’s performance. Meta’s better-than-expected performance comes on the heels of a similarly strong quarter from Google parent
GOOGL,
GOOG,
Alphabet Inc. and poor results from Snap Inc.
SNAP,
“We had a good quarter. We continue to see strong engagement across our apps and we have the most exciting roadmap I’ve seen in a while with Llama 2, Threads, Reels, new AI products in the pipeline, and the launch of Quest 3 this fall,” Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement announcing the results. AI has been an increasingly dominant story line for Meta, which has quickly shifted its focus from the metaverse. Zuckerberg said AI remains the company’s near-term focus, with metaverse poised to have a long-term impact.
“In many ways, the two are interrelated,” Zuckerberg said of AI and metaverse in a conference call with analysts. He also spotlighted the potential of Threads, a Twitter-like service that launched earlier this month with much fanfare. “When it gets to hundreds of millions of users, we’ll see how it monetizes,” he said. “It is a long road ahead.”
Meta executives forecast third-quarter revenue of $32 billion to $34.5 billion, while analysts on average were expecting $31.2 billion, according to FactSet.
Facebook had 2.06 billion daily active users, up 5% from a year ago, and the “family” of Meta apps — which includes Instagram — reported daily active users of 3.07 billion, up 7%.
There were blips amid the hoopla, however. Meta says it expects 2023 total expenses will be in the range of $88 billion to $91 billion, compared to the prior range of $86 billion to $90 billion because of legal-related expenses in the second quarter. And Meta’s headcount dropped 14% from a year ago to 71,469 as of June 30. Zuckerberg said Meta’s austerity program will continue into 2024.
Meta’s stock improved 1.4% to $298.57 in the regular session. The stock has sky-rocketed 148% so far this year, while the broader S&P 500 index
SPX,
has increased 19%.
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