Amazon said Wednesday it plans to spend roughly $4 billion by the end of 2026 on expanding deliveries in rural towns as part of a push to bring faster shipping times to more parts of the U.S.

Once the expansion is complete, more than 200 delivery stations will be added, tripling the size of Amazon’s rural delivery network, the company said. The move will bring products closer to customers, and cut average delivery times “in half,” Amazon added.

“At a time where many logistics providers are backing away from serving rural customers because of cost to serve, we are stepping up our investment to make their lives easier and better,” Udit Madan, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said in a statement.

When the new facilities are open, Amazon said it aims to create about 170 jobs at each site.

Amazon has been working to speed up deliveries for the past several years. After making two-day delivery the standard, the company has invested in shuttling packages to shoppers’ doors in one day, or in some cases, within a few hours.

It’s been able to do this by building up a massive network of warehouses across the country, as well as by bringing more of its logistics operations in house. In 2022, Amazon said it was poised to pass UPS and FedEx to become the largest U.S. package delivery service.

The company still relies on carriers, including the U.S. Postal Service, for a portion of its deliveries, but it’s handling a significant share via its delivery service partner program, which is made up of thousands of contracted third-party delivery companies, as well as legions of Flex gig workers. Amazon has also recently expanded another program, launched in 2023, that enlists mom-and-pop shops in rural towns to make deliveries on the company’s behalf.

The announcement comes as Amazon is set to report first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. It’s also landing one day after Amazon drew the ire of the White House for reportedly planning to display how much of an item’s cost is due to tariffs. Amazon said the plan was “not going to happen” and it had only considered such a move for products on its discount storefront, called Haul.

Meta is continuing to sink billions of dollars a quarter into the metaverse.

In its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, Meta said its Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss of $4.2 billion in the period while bringing in $412 million in sales. Analysts were projecting an operating loss of $4.6 billion on revenue of $492.7 million.

Meta’s Reality Labs unit is responsible for the company’s Quest-branded virtual reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. It’s the key business unit that anchors CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to build a new computing platform involving digital worlds accessible via VR and augmented reality devices.

Reality Labs has reported cumulative losses of more than $60 billion since late 2020, including a loss of $3.85 billion in the first quarter of last year. In late 2021, Zuckerberg changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta.

Wall Street has questioned Meta’s big spending on the metaverse, which Zuckerberg has said could take many years to turn into a real business. The company must now also contend with sweeping new tariffs from President Donald Trump and the likely increase in costs that will follow, potentially leading to higher-priced devices.

Last week, Meta said that an unspecified number of Reality Labs employees were laid off. Those workers were part of the Oculus Studios unit, which creates VR and AR games and content for Quest VR headsets.

“Some teams within Oculus Studios are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement about the cuts. “These changes are meant to help Studios work more efficiently on future mixed reality experiences for our growing audience, while still delivering great content for people today.”

WATCH: Big Tech earnings on deck.

Qualcomm reported fiscal second-quarter earnings on Wednesday that topped Wall Street expectations as the company’s chip sales showed strong year-over-year growth.

Qualcomm shares fell in extended trading as the company’s revenue forecast for the current quarter was slightly lighter than expectations.

Here’s how the chipmaker did compared to Wall Street expectations, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $2.85 adjusted vs. $2.82 expected
• Revenue: $10.84 billion adjusted vs. $10.66 billion expected

In the current quarter, Qualcomm said it expected $2.70 at the midpoint in adjusted earnings per share on $10.3 billion in revenue at the midpoint. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $2.67 in adjusted earnings on $10.35 billion in sales in the current quarter.

Net income during the quarter ending in March was $2.81 billion, or $2.52 per share, compared to $2.33 billion, or $2.06 per share, in the year-ago period. Qualcomm’s adjusted results include exclusions for acquisition-related charges, interest expenses, and share compensation.

Qualcomm’s most important business is selling chips such as modems and processors for smartphones, including high-end devices made by Samsung and Apple. Its overall handset chip sales increased 12% on an annual basis to $6.93 billion. Qualcomm’s overall adjusted revenue in the quarter rose 15%.

But under CEO Cristiano Amon, the company has been working to sell more chips for cars, reported as its automotive business, and more chips for other gadgets such as Meta’s Quest virtual reality headsets, as well as Windows PCs, under its Internet of Things business. Growth in those categories signals how well the company is diversifying away from its core handset business, which expects to lose Apple as a customer in the coming years.

Qualcomm said that its automotive business grew a 59% on an annual basis, to $959 million in sales. Its internet of things business rose 27% to $1.58 billion in revenue.

All together, Qualcomm’s business selling chips, called QCT, rose 18% on an annual basis to $9.47 billion in revenue during the quarter.

Qualcomm’s other major division is QTL, which is a profitable division that collects licensing fees from technology that Qualcomm developed and patented. QTL revenue was flat year-over-year at $1.32 billion.

Qualcomm is exposed to tariffs, export controls and shifts in demand because it designs and ships physical hardware. Amon said in a statement that Qualcomm was navigating the “current macroeconomic and trade environment.”

The company said it spent $2.7 billion on capital return during the quarter, including $1.7 billion in share repurchases and $938 million in dividends.