Facebook parent company Meta's first-quarter results surpassed Wall Street's modest expectations on both profit and revenue, sending its stock soaring in after-hours trading.
Meta reported that the monthly user base of its flagship platform — Facebook — inched close to 3 billion, and its revenue guidance for the current quarter was also above analyst estimates.
“Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re also becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster and put ourselves in a stronger position to deliver our long term vision.”
Meta Platforms Inc. said Wednesday it earned $5.71 billion, or $2.20 per share, in the January-March period. That's down 19% from $7.47 billion, or $2.72 per share, a year earlier. Results in the latest quarter were weighed down by restructuring charges.
Revenue climbed 3% to $28.65 billion from $27.91 billion.
Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $2.02 per share on revenue of $27.67 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.
Meta said it has “substantially completed” layoffs it first announced in 2022. It announced a second round of layoffs in March.
For the current quarter, Meta said it expects revenue in the range of $29.5 billion to $32 billion, above analysts' expectations of $29.45 billion.
“In this economic environment — and after the disaster that was 2022 — 3% year-over-year revenue growth is an accomplishment,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with Insider Intelligence. "Meta’s strong guidance for Q2 revenue is another indicator that the company may be starting to come out of the woods.”
But, she added, Meta still has a lot of work to do — including finish the rebuilding of its ad targeting capabilities “after the Apple privacy debacle,” make a strong case to advertisers for “why they should invest in Reels instead of TikTok, and keep restless creators in the fold.”
Apple made privacy changes to its phones that make it harder for companies like Meta to track people for advertising purposes, which hurt the company's revenue — which mostly comes from ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta is “starting to find its way again after being negatively impacted by Apple privacy changes, TikTok competition, Reels headwinds, heavy hiring and expense growth,” said Dan Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company.
Meta said 3.02 billion people logged in to at least one of its apps — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger — every day in March. Facebook, still its biggest platform and biggest source of ad revenue, had 2.04 billion daily users and 2.99 billion monthly users, an increase of 4% and 2% year-over-year.
Shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company rose nearly 12% to $234.20 in after-hours trading.
The Super Bowl is only a few days away, and the game is currently tracking to be the most expensive one ever.
Gametime, a website and app for last-minute tickets, says the average ticket price for the NFL's championship game is $9,502.50, with the most expensive seats costing nearly $38,000. That's a far cry away from the average ticket price of the first-ever Super Bowl in 1967, which was only $12. The average ticket price increased by more than $8,000 in just the past decade. Matt Rados, Senior Operations Manager at Gametime, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Earlier this week, digital investment advisor Betterment announced that it has hired Makara, a company known for its management of cryptocurrency portfolios. Sarah Levy, CEO of Betterment, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where she explains why crypto represents such a promising long-term play and how her company stands to benefit from this latest move.
At-home medical labs company Getlabs raised $20 million in a Series A round, led by Emerson Collective and the Minderoo Foundation. Getlabs aims to be the boots-on-the-ground partner to telehealth. The company says more than 70% of medical decisions still require collecting diagnostic tests in person, and that it fills that void by delivering health care directly to their patients' homes. Founder & CEO of Getlabs Kyle Michelson joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The White House laid out plans for a $5 billion investment into a national network of charging stations to ease EV driving anxiety. Bruce Brimacombe, CEO of EV infrastructure GOe3 joined Cheddar News to discuss how much needs to be done for drivers to get over the fear of running out of energy. "People need to be able to do what they're doing now," he said. "But that is the way that if you're going to buy an electric car, you got to feel like you're not changing your world." Brimacombe noted that building out the infrastructure between cities was GOe3's own focus.
Sonos reported better than expected Q1 earnings amid chip shortage with the release of its Roam product. CFO Brittany Bagley joined Cheddar News to discuss the smart speaker maker's successful report and its plans to hit its 2024 targets as people leave their homes as pandemic restrictions ease. "Even as people head out in the world, it doesn't mean they don't like to listen to music at home or watch a streaming movie at home," she said. "So there's still a real role for us and our products in peoples lives, sort of, no matter what else they're doing."
Kalle Marsal, Chief Operating Officer at PetDx, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how next-generation sequencing technology is being used to detect cancer in pets early.
Ashleigh Hinde, Founder and CEO of WALDO, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss why now is a good time to make eyecare a priority, and how they are democratizing access to eyecare for all.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: WALDO CEO breaks down why now is a good time to make eyecare a priority, and how they are democratizing access to eyecare for all; COO at PetDx explains how next-generation sequencing technology is being used to detect cancer in pets early; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Inside The Mind of a Con Artist.'
