top line
Metaplatforms’ stock price fell more than 3% on Wednesday as it reported profit and revenue that beat Wall Street expectations.
Meta’s logo at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. (Photo by: Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for … (+) Facebook)
Getty Images for Facebook
important facts
According to FactSet, Meta reported earnings of $6.03 per share and revenue of $40.2 billion in the third quarter of 2024, compared to analysts’ expectations for earnings of $6.03 per share and revenue of $40.5 billion. Reported.
The number of daily active users across apps rose 5% year-on-year to 3.29 billion, but fell short of analysts’ expectations of 3.31 billion.
Meta stock has grown about 70% since the beginning of the year, outpacing its peers, while other tech giants like Google and Microsoft have grown about 30% and 18%, respectively.
The social media giant’s stock hit an all-time high of $602.95 earlier this month.
Capital spending also increased to $9.2 billion year-over-year, as the company continues to invest billions of dollars in its artificial intelligence and Reality Labs hardware divisions.
The company’s Reality Labs division, responsible for products such as the Meta Quest headset and newly previewed Orion augmented reality glasses, posted an operating loss of $4.4 billion, but CFO Susan Lee said the trend will continue this year. He added that he expected it to continue for a long time. In response to continued investor concerns.
Main background
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, is betting big on AI as it prepares to train the latest version of its flagship AI model, Llama. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday’s third-quarter earnings call that the model is “very advanced in development.” “At this point, we’d rather take the risk of building capacity before we need it, rather than it being too late,” Zuckerberg said during a second-quarter earnings call in July. The company’s flagship chatbot, MetaAI, has more than 500 million monthly active users, he said on a conference call Wednesday. A surprise hit for the company, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are the best-selling product at Ray-Ban stores in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Ray-Ban parent company Essilorluxottica reported earlier this month. Analysts at Trust Securities wrote ahead of the earnings release that Meta’s AI investments could also help improve user engagement on social media apps. On the social media front, Meta’s X competitor Threads has reached about 275 million users in about a year since its debut, Zuckerberg said.
big number
1.5 trillion dollars. This is Meta’s market capitalization, making it one of the $8 trillion companies in the world.
Forbes rating
Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who ranked third on this year’s Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people, is worth an estimated $207.5 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time tracker. He is one of the four people with the highest net worth in the world. More than $200 billion. Almost all of his wealth is tied to meth stocks and their performance. Zuckerberg’s net worth has more than tripled from an estimated $64.4 billion last year.
What to watch out for
Meta is developing its own AI search engine to reduce dependence on Google Search and Microsoft’s Bing, The Information reported. The search engine is designed to provide answers to queries for Meta AI chatbots.
amazing facts
In what is now being dubbed “Grubgate,” Meta fired about 20 employees this month for abusing $25 Grubhub meal credits. Employees reportedly used the credits to purchase non-food items such as laundry detergent and wine glasses.
Read more
Instagram introduces new ‘sextortion’ guardrails for child safety—here’s what you need to know (Forbes)
How two students used Meta Ray-Bans to access personal information (Forbes)
