Meta Platforms Inc. reported strong fourth-quarter earnings that exceeded analyst expectations. The company’s revenue surged 21% year-over-year, reaching $48.39 billion, while net income grew 49% to $20.8 billion.
meta projects some light revenues for next quarter compared to Wall Street expectations……
— rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) January 29, 2025
CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed optimism about Meta’s future, anticipating 2025 to be a transformative year for the company.
is meta just not gonna do earnings today because i could go for a matinee
— rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) January 29, 2025
He highlighted the growth of the Meta AI chatbot, which now has over 700 million monthly active users, and the emergence of DeepSeek, a high-performing open-source large language model developed by a Chinese lab. Meta plans to invest heavily in AI infrastructure, with capital expenditures expected to range between $60 billion and $65 billion in 2025.
Zuckerberg believes that this investment will provide a strategic advantage for the company.
We expect Meta and Microsoft to reiterate their massive 2025 AI driven Capex numbers of $60 billion-$65 billion and $80 billion respectively with a firm tone on tomorrow night’s conf call. This is what the Street is focused on after the DeepSeek LLM/model heard around the world🍿
— Dan Ives (@DivesTech) January 28, 2025
Meta’s AI investment strategy
The company’s daily active users reached 3.35 billion in the fourth quarter, up from 3.29 billion in the previous quarter.
Meta’s fourth-quarter costs and expenses increased by more than 5% from the prior year, reaching $25.02 billion.
Zuck on Meta earnings call just now: "I continue to think that investing very heavily in capex and infra" will be "a "major advantage"
Wall Street breathes a sigh of relief
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) January 29, 2025
Susan Li, Meta’s Chief Financial Officer, stated that investments in the company’s core business would continue to drive strong revenue growth throughout 2025. The company expects its total expenses for 2025 to range between $114 billion and $119 billion, with a significant portion allocated to infrastructure costs.
Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which focuses on virtual and augmented reality technologies, reported a fourth-quarter loss while generating $1.1 billion in sales. The company plans to hire new employees to support various areas, including infrastructure, monetization, Reality Labs, generative AI, regulation, and compliance. While Meta did not provide a specific revenue outlook for 2025, the company remains confident that continued investments will support sustained growth.