Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, ETR:FB2A, SWX:FB) shares were up 2.3% at $692 in pre-market trading on Thursday after the Facebook and Instagram owner posted strong earnings for the past quarter and ramped up expectations for its AI efforts.
"In AI, I expect that this is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than one billion people," founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the post earnings call.
With the Meta AI chatbot said to have passed 700 million monthly active users, he said "I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant."
Zuckerberg told analysts: “Once a service reaches that kind of scale, it usually develops a durable, long term advantage."
Earnings per share came in at $8.02 for the fourth quarter, whereas the Wall Street consensus estimate was for $6.78.
Fourth-quarter revenue of $48.39 billion was also better than expected, with analysts forecasting $46.98 billion on average.
Meta guided to revenues in the first quarter of between $39.5 billion and $41.8 billion, which was at the lower end of Street expectation, with the consensus mid-point at $41.67 billion.
Alongside the results, Zuckerberg said the company "continue[s] to make good progress on AI, glasses, and the future of social media. I'm excited to see these efforts scale further in 2025."
Capital expenditure this year will range from $60 billion to $65 billion, up from $39.23 billion last year driven by increased investment in generative AI and the "core" social media business, though the majority of capex in 2025 will continue to be directed to our core business, Meta said.
Cash and equivalents stood at $77.8 billion at the end of December, following free cash flow of $52.1 billion in the year.