Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone, as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S. September 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta shares jumped 10% after the company reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat on revenue. Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $7.14 vs. $5.92 expectedRevenue: $47.52 vs. $44.80 billion expected
Meta said that third-quarter sales will come in the range $47.5 billion to $50.5 billion, ahead of Wall Street estimates of $46.14 billion.
The company said that capital expenditures will come in between $66 billion and $72 billion, raising the low end of the company’s previous estimate of $64 billion and $72 billion.
Meta said that compensation related to hiring will be “the second largest driver of growth” and that “these factors will result in a 2026 year-over-year expense growth rate that is above the 2025 expense growth.”
Meta’s Reality Labs unit, tasked with developing virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, recorded an operating loss of $4.53 billion on $370 million in sales during the second quarter. These losses were less than Wall Street estimates.
Daily active people for Meta’s family of apps grew to 3.48 billion in the second quarter, ahead of analyst estimates of 3.45 billion. That’s up from 3.43 billion in the previous quarter.
Meta’s total costs and expenses for the second quarter were $27.07 billion, which was a 12% year-over-year increase.
The company kicked off its AI hiring bonanza in June when it invested $14.3 billion into Scale AI, landing the data-annotating startup’s CEO Alexandr Wang to co-lead the new Meta Superintelligence Labs as the company’s chief AI officer. Zuckerberg undertook the AI strategy overhaul to help the company regain momentum after lukewarm developer response to its Llama 4 AI model, CNBC reported Tuesday.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided an outline for his vision of “personal superintelligence” in
in a letter he published earlier on Wednesday morning. Zuckerberg did not list any particular product or app that exemplifies his superintelligence vision, but said that the cutting-edge tech should be used for “personal empowerment” over automation and efficiency.
The social media company’s total expenses for 2025 will fall in the range of $114 billion to $118 billion, which is higher than its prior outlook of $113 billion to $118 billion.
Meta’s advertising revenue for the second quarter came in at $46.56 billion, ahead of Wall Street projections of $43.97 billion, per StreetAccount.
The company did not provide an outlook for fourth-quarter sales, but said that it expects the year-over-year growth rate in that quarter “to be slower than the third quarter as we lap a period of stronger growth in the fourth quarter of 2024.”
“We’ve had a strong quarter both in terms of our business and community,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “I’m excited to build personal superintelligence for everyone in the world.”
Google posted strong quarterly earnings results quarterly earnings results last week that beat on the top and the bottom.
Amazon and Reddit will report on Thursday their second-quarter earnings.
Snap will report its latest quarterly earnings on Tuesday followed by Pinterest, which will report its financials on Thursday.
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