Earnings Results: Meta’s stock jumps after AI, ad momentum drive earnings, revenue jump

United States

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is raking in digital ads, as its earnings attest, and Wall Street is rewarding it. The company’s stock was up more than 7% in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Meta META, +1.39% 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.

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, +5.78% GOOG, +5.59% Alphabet Inc. and poor results from Snap Inc. SNAP, -14.23%.

“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, -0.02%  has increased 19%.