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.
Hinge users who have children can opt-in to a $100 stipend up to $25,000 for childcare. Logan Ury, the director of relationship science for the online dating platform, noted the issue as an obstacle for single parents who want to go out on dates. "We have heard that singles with children have a hard time going on dates for one of the reasons being that it's just hard to find childcare and it's hard to be able to afford it," she said. Ury also said that the hot topic among Hinge's users is mental health and the prioritizing of mental health.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: CEO of HereAfter AI discusses how artificial intelligence can be used to preserve family history and stories, and allow you to 'talk' to loved ones that have passed; Creator of the board game 'Travel Explore Discover' explains how she came up with the idea for this informative and educational board game, and how she's using the proceeds to give back to her community; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'The Humboldt Current.'
James Vlahos, Co-Founder and CEO of HereAfter AI, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how artificial intelligence can be used to preserve family history and stories, and allow you to 'talk' to loved ones that have passed.
Facebook parent Meta’s miss on Q4 earnings raised alarm bells amongst investors. The tech giant lost users for the first time as it invests a lot into the metaverse, its virtual realm, in the hopes that consumers will move their social media consumption there. The stock dropped around 25 percent on the report, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg chalked it up to people flocking toward apps like TikTok, even as his own platform attempts to make a big pivot to the metaverse future. "It's gonna take a long time to develop and it's gonna take a long time to bring to fruition," Rebecca Walser, president of Walser Wealth Management told Cheddar. "In the meantime, the world is moving on. We have a very short attention span, especially on social media, and we want the short little videos. And Tiktok has just taken off."
Just this week, Facebook's parent company Meta released an update for its 3D avatar creation on Facebook and messenger. This update is encouraging users of Instagram to create their virtual selves, and it is an early step towards making the metaverse vision a reality. David Ewalt, editor-in-chief at Gizmodo joins Cheddar News to discuss.
Ed Butowsky, managing partner at Chapwood Investments, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the disappointing takeaways from Spotify's Q4 earnings report, which sent the stock plunging.
Google parent company Alphabet saw yet another successful quarter reporting its final earnings report for 2021 on Tuesday. The tech giant beat Wall Street expectations across the board with much of that success owed to not only the growth of its cloud business, but also its multi-platform advertising. Joanna O'Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester explains why advertising may be one of the keys to Alphabet’s future success.
