Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg attends the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Meta will report fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.
Here’s what analysts surveyed by LSEG, formerly Refinitiv, are expecting:
Earnings: $4.96 per share
Revenue: $39.18 billion
Wall Street will also be looking at these key user numbers:
Daily active users (DAUs): 2.08 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Monthly active users (MAUs): 3.06 billion expected, according to StreetAccount
Average revenue per user (ARPU): $12.81 expected, according to StreetAccount
Meta is projected to report revenue growth of 22% as the online advertising market continues to recover from a brutal 2022, when soaring inflation and rising interest rates forced brands to reel in spending.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributes advances in artificial intelligence to improvements in the ad business, which is growing faster than rival Google. In Alphabet‘s earnings report on Tuesday, the company said Google ad revenue increased 11% from a year earlier, slower expansion than analysts were expecting.
Part of Meta’s financial recovery over the past year was driven by Chinese retailers, which have bolstered spending to reach users across the globe. Meta finance chief Susan Li most recently highlighted the significance of business from China in the company’s third-quarter earnings report in October. Li didn’t name specific companies, but fast-growing upstarts Temu and Shein, which originated in China, have been pouring money into ads on Facebook and Instagram.
While Meta has a very diverse base of advertisers, some analysts say the potential for Temu and Shein to pull back spending poses a risk because every point of growth matters for a company that saw revenue shrink for three straight quarters in 2022.
Zuckerberg, along with the top executives at TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Snap and Discord, faced tough questioning from lawmakers on Wednesday. They accused the Facebook founder of ignoring the severity of child exploitation on the company’s family of apps.
Parents attending the hearing lambasted Meta and other companies for what they allege are insufficient safety and design measures that have caused mental health issues for their children and, in some cases, even resulted in their deaths.
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve all gone through. It’s terrible,” Zuckerberg told the parents in an emotional scene on Capitol Hill. “No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”
Investors will also be looking for signs that Meta’s pivot to the metaverse is bearing fruit. The company has been burning billions of dollars a quarter to build out a virtual world that Zuckerberg has said is the future of computing. In total, the division has lost about $25 billion since the beginning of 2022, shortly after Zuckerberg renamed his company.
Analysts expect Reality Labs to show revenue of $762.8 million for the quarter and an operating loss of $4.26 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Apple and Amazon are also slated to report fourth-quarter results on Thursday, wrapping up earnings season for tech’s mega-cap companies.
A government intervention in struggling chipmaker Intel is “essential” for the sake of national security, analyst Gil Luria said Friday, following a report that the Trump administration is weighing taking a stake in the company.
“We’re all capitalists,” Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We don’t want government to intervene and own private enterprise, but this is national security.”
Bloomberg reported Thursday that the Trump administration is considering having the U.S. government take a stake in Intel. The news sent Intel shares higher, and the stock climbed again Friday.
Intel previously declined to comment on the report.
Luria said such a deal is needed to revive Intel and reduce the country’s reliance on companies like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor to manufacture chips. President Donald Trump has called for more chips and high-end technology to be made in the U.S.
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How the White House could structure such an intervention is still in question. Bloomberg reported Friday that the administration has discussed using funds from the CHIPS Act.
Intel received $7.9 billion from the Department of Commerce through the CHIPS Act, and it was awarded roughly $3 billion under the CHIPS Act for the Pentagon’s Secure Enclave program.
“Intel has had many opportunities over decades to get it right, and it hasn’t. So we need to intervene,” Luria said. “The government’s going to come in and it’s going to give Intel unfair advantages, and if it’s going to do that, it wants a piece of the business.”
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan met with Trump at the White House on Monday after the president called for his resignation based on allegations that he has ties to China.
Luria pointed to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments that the rise of superintelligent AI could be “the next wave of nuclear proliferation,” as evidence that direct intervention by the government is needed.
“We can’t rely on somebody else making shell casings for our nuclear arsenal,” Luria said. “We have to get it right.”
Applied Materials shares sank more than 10% in extended trading Thursday as the semiconductor equipment company provided outlook for the current quarter that came in light.
Here’s how Applied Materials did in its third-quarter earnings results versus LSEG consensus estimates:
EPS: $2.48, adjusted, versus $2.36 estimated.
Revenue: $7.3 billion vs $7.22 billion estimated.
Applied Materials said it expects $2.11 per share in adjusted earnings in the current quarter, lower than LSEG estimates of $2.39 per share. The company said to expect $6.7 billion in revenue, versus $7.34 billion estimated.
CEO Gary Dickerson said that the current macroeconomic and policy environment is “creating increased uncertainty and lower visibility.” He said the company’s China business is particularly effected by the uncertainty.
The Trump administration’s tariffs could double the price of imported chips unless companies buying them commit to building in the U.S. Applied Materials makes tools for chip foundries to physically make chips, much of which currently happens in Asia.
Applied Materials said that it has a large backlog of pending export license applications with the U.S. government, but that it’s assuming none of them will be issued in the next quarter.
“We are expecting a decline in revenue in the fourth quarter driven by both digestion of capacity in China and non-linear demand from leading-edge customers given market concentration and fab timing,” the company’s finance chief said in a statement. He added that it expected lower China business to continue for several more quarters.
Applied Materials reported $1.78 billion in net income, or $2.22 per diluted share in the quarter, versus $1.71 billion or $2.05 in the year-ago period.
The company’s most important division, semiconductor systems, reported $5.43 billion in sales, topping estimates, and representing a 10% rise from last year.
Applied Materials was praised by President Donald Trump earlier this month after it was included in an Apple program to make more chips in the U.S.
Apple said it would partner with the chipmaker to produce more manufacturing equipment in Austin, Texas.
Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., departs following a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
Alex Wroblewski | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Intel shares rose 7% on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is in talks with the chipmaker to have the U.S. government take a stake in the struggling company.
Intel is the only U.S. company with the capability to manufacture the fastest chips on U.S. shores, although rivals including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung also have U.S. factories. President Donald Trump has called for more chips and high technology to be manufactured in the U.S.
The government’s stake would help fund factories that Intel is currently building in Ohio, according to the report.
Earlier this week, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan visited Trump in the White House, a meeting that took place after the president had called for Tan’s resignation based on allegations he has ties to China.
Intel said at the time that Tan is “deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests.” An Intel representative declined to comment about reports that the government is considering taking a stake in the company.
“We look forward to continuing our work with the Trump Administration to advance these shared priorities, but we are not going to comment on rumors or speculation,” the spokesperson said.
Tan took over Intel earlier this year after the chipmaker failed to gain significant share in artificial intelligence chips, while it was spending heavily to build its foundry business, which manufactures chips for other companies.
Intel’s foundry business has yet to secure a major customer, which would be a critical step in moving towards expansion and giving other potential customers the confidence to turn to Intel for manufacturing.
In July, Tan said that Intel was canceling plans for manufacturing sites in Germany and Poland and would slow down development in Ohio, adding that spending at the chipmaker would be closely scrutinized.
Under Trump, the U.S. government has increasingly moved to put itself at the center of deals in major industries. Last week, it said it would take 15% of certain Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China. The Pentagon bought a $400 million equity stake in rare-earth miner MP Materials.It also took a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy the U.S. industrial giant.
Intel shares are now up 19% this year after losing 60% of their value in 2024, the worst year on record for the chipmaker.