An uptick in social media use across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has seen Meta smash its earnings results for the three months to December.
The tech giant posted its best-ever quarterly earnings with a record revenue up 21% to US$48.6 billion and a 49% rise in Q4 profit to US$20.8 billion, announced after Wall Street closed on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT).
The company posted an earnings per share of $8.02 on revenue of $48.6 billion - higher than expectations for EPS to reach $6.75 on revenue of $46.9 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates.
Average daily users across Meta’s apps - including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp - hit 3.35 billion (up from 3.29 billion three months prior).
The higher-than-expected results come in as the company gears up to sizeably increase its capex this year, driven by its investment in generative AI tech.
Outlook
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he is excited to see business streams scale further during 2025 as the trillion-dollar tech giant “continue[s] to make good progress on AI, glasses and the future of social media”.
Looking forward, the company says it expects a growth in revenue of up to 18% during 2025.
“We expect first quarter 2025 total revenue to be in the range of $39.5-41.8 billion. This reflects 8-15% year-over-year growth, or 11-18% growth on a constant currency basis as our guidance assumes foreign currency is an approximately 3% headwind to year-over-year total revenue growth, based on current exchange rates,” Meta said.
2025 total expenses are expected to range between $114-119 billion, with a CY2025 capex ranging between $60-65 billion.
“We expect the single largest driver of expense growth in 2025 to be infrastructure costs, driven by higher operating expenses and depreciation, and increased investment to support both our generative AI efforts and core business.”
The US$1.71 trillion market-capped social media behemoth remained buoyant on trade with a 0.32% gain, swapping shares for US$676.49.