Meta reports better-than-expected results and issues optimistic guidance for third quarter
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., left, arrives at federal court in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta reported earnings and revenue for the second quarter that topped analysts’ estimates and issued a better-than-expected forecast for the current period, reflecting a rebound in the digital advertising market.
The stock rose about 5% in extended trading.
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Here are the results.
- Earnings: $2.98 per share vs. $2.91 expected by Refinitiv.
- Revenue: $32 billion vs. $31.12 billion expected by Refinitiv.
Wall Street is also focused on these numbers in the report:
- Daily Active Users (DAUs): 2.06 billion vs 2.04 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.
- Monthly Active Users (MAUs): 3.03 billion vs 3 billion expected, according to StreetAccount.
- Average Revenue per User (ARPU): $10.63 vs $10.22 expected, according to StreetAccount.
Revenue increased 11% from a year earlier, the first time the company has reported double-digit growth since the end of 2021. Prior to the first quarter, revenue had declined in three straight periods as the company reckoned with a sputtering economy and Apple’s iOS privacy change, which limited ad targeting capabilities.
The company said revenue in the third quarter will be $32 billion to $34.5 billion. Analysts polled before the report were expecting third-quarter sales of $31.3 billion, according to Refinitiv. That suggests growth of at least 15% from a year earlier.
Investors have been riding the Meta wave in 2023, expecting a rebound in the ad market and better profitability following the company’s mass layoffs. Prior to Wednesday’s close, the stock was up 159% this year, compared to the 19% advance in the S&P 500. Meta shares lost about two-thirds of their value last year.
“We had a good quarter,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We continue to see strong engagement across our apps and we have the most exciting roadmap I’ve seen in a while with Llama 2, Threads, Reels, new AI products in the pipeline, and the launch of Quest 3 this fall.”
Net income rose to $7.79 billion, or $2.98 a share, from $6.69, or $2.46 a share, a year earlier.
Meta said its total costs and expenses were $22.61 billion in the second quarter, which is an increase of 10% from the same period a year ago.
Zuckerberg has been pushing for Meta to become more efficient, instituting a cost-savings plan that resulted in about job cuts. The plan appears to be working.
The company is now forecasting capital expenditures for 2023 of $27 billion to $30 billion, down from a prior estimate of $30 billion to $33 billion.
“The reduced forecast is due to both cost savings, particularly on non-AI servers, as well as shifts in capital expenditures into 2024 from delays in projects and equipment deliveries rather than a reduction in overall investment plans,” the company said.
Expenses in 2024 are expected to grow due to investments in data centers and AI, Meta said.
Total headcount declined 14% year-over-year to 71,469, with the company adding that “approximately half of the employees impacted by the 2023 layoffs are included in our reported headcount as of June 30, 2023.”
Meta now says it plans to spend more on payroll expenses as the company evolves its “workforce composition toward higher-cost technical roles,” suggesting that some staffers who are shifted to certain technical roles could earn more money.
Meta’s Reality Labs unit, tasked with developing the metaverse, brought in $276 million in sales during the second quarter while recording a loss of $3.7 billion. Meta said that those losses will continue to “increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem.”
Executives will discuss the results on a call with analysts starting at 5 p.m. ET.
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Aman Venice hotel, on the second day of the wedding festivities of Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez, in Venice, Italy, June 27, 2025.
Yara Nardi | Reuters
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unloaded more than 3.3 million shares of his company in a sale valued at roughly $736.7 million, according to a financial filing on Tuesday.
The stock sale is part of a previously arranged trading plan adopted by Bezos in March. Under that arrangement, Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares of Amazon over a period ending May 29, 2026.
Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has been selling stock in the company at a regular clip in recent years, though he’s still the largest individual shareholder. He adopted a similar trading plan in February 2024 to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through late January of this year.
Bezos previously said he’d sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin. He’s also donated shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit that’s building a chain of Montessori-inspired preschools across several states.
The most recent stock sale comes after Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot last week in a lavish wedding in Venice. The star-studded celebration, which took place over three days and sparked protests from some local residents, was estimated to cost around $50 million.
Bezos is ranked third in Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of about $240 billion. He’s behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk at $363 billion and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $260 billion.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.
Camille Cohen | AFP | Getty Images
The Google Doodle is Alphabet’s most valuable piece of real estate, and on Tuesday, the company used that space to promote “AI Mode,” its latest AI search product.
Google’s Chrome browser landing pages and Google’s home page featured an animated image that, when clicked, leads users to AI Mode, the company’s latest search product. The doodle image also includes a share button.
The promotion of AI Mode on the Google Doodle comes as the tech company makes efforts to expose more users to its latest AI features amid pressure from artificial intelligence startups. That includes OpenAI which makes ChatGPT, Anthropic which makes Claude and Perplexity AI, which bills itself as an “AI-powered answer engine.”
Google’s “Doodle” Tuesday directed users to its search chatbot-like experience “AI Mode”
AI Mode is Google’s chatbot-like experience for complex user questions. The company began displaying AI Mode alongside its search results page in March.
“Search whatever’s on your mind and get AI-powered responses,” the product description reads when clicked from the home page.
AI Mode is powered by Google’s flagship AI model Gemini, and the tool has rolled out to more U.S. users since its launch. Users can ask AI Mode questions using text, voice or images. Google says AI Mode makes it easier to find answers to complex questions that might have previously required multiple searches.
In May, Google tested the AI Mode feature directly beneath the Google search bar, replacing the “I’m Feeling Lucky” widget — a place where Google rarely makes changes.
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Disposable diapers are a massive environmental offender. Roughly 300,000 of them are sent to landfills or incinerated every minute, according to the World Economic Forum, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. It’s a $60 billion business.
One alternative approach has been compostable diapers, which can be made out of wood pulp or bamboo. But composting services aren’t universally available and some of the products are less absorbent than normal nappies, critics say.
A growing number of parents are also turning to cloth diapers, but they only make up about 20% of the U.S. market.
ZymoChem is attacking the diaper problem from a different angle. Harshal Chokhawala, CEO of ZymoChem, said that 60% to 80% of a typical diaper consists of fossil-based plastics. And half of that is an ingredient called super absorbent polymer, or SAP.
“What we have created is a low carbon footprint bio-based and biodegradable version of this super absorbent polymer,” Chokhawala said.
ZymoChem, with operations in San Leandro, California, and Burlington, Vermont, invented this new type of absorbent by using a fermentation process to convert a renewable resource — sugar — from corn into biodegradable materials. It’s similar to making beer.
“We’re at a point now where we’re very close to being at cost parity with fossil based manufacturing of super absorbents,” said Chokhawala.
The company’s drop-in absorbents can be added into other diapers, which makes it different from environmentally conscious companies like Charlie Banana, Kudos and Hiro, which sell their own brand of diapers.
ZymoChem doesn’t yet have a diaper product on the market. But Lindy Fishburne, managing partner at Breakout Ventures and an investor in the company, says it’s a scalable model.
“Being able to build and grow with biology allows us to unlock a circular economy and a supply chain that is no longer petro-derived, which opens up the opportunities of where you can manufacture and how you secure supply chains,” Fishburne said.
Other investors include Toyota Ventures, GS Futures, KDT Ventures, Cavallo Ventures and Lululemon. The company has raised a total of $35 million.
The Lululemon partnership shows that it’s not just about diapers. ZymoChem’s bio-based materials can also be used in other hygiene products and in bio-based nylon. Lululemon recently said it will use it in some of its leggings, which were traditionally made with petroleum.
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