Meta Platforms Q4 Earnings: Shares Soar On Revenue Beat, Updated Guidance; Here's What Mark Zuckerberg Says

Zinger Key Points
  • Meta Platforms reports fourth-quarter revenue of $32.17 billion, down 4% year-over-year.
  • The company shared first-quarter guidance for revenue and updated its 2023 costs and expenses outlook.

Social media and metaverse company Meta Platforms META announced fourth quarter financial results after the market close Wednesday. Here are the key highlights.

What Happened: Meta Platforms reported fourth-quarter revenue of $32.17 billion, down 4% year-over-year. The revenue figure came in ahead of a Street estimate of $31.53 billion, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Meta Platforms reported fourth-quarter earnings per share of $1.76, missing a Street estimate of $2.22. The company said earnings per share would have been $1.24 higher without restructuring charges in the fourth quarter.

The company ended the fourth quarter with 2.96 billion daily active people, up 5% year-over-year, across its family of products. Family monthly active people were 3.74 billion at the end of the fourth quarter, up 4% year-over-year.

Facebook daily active users totaled 2 billion in the quarter, up 4% year-over-year. Facebook monthly active users were up 2% year-over-year to 2.96 billion.

The company said the number of ad impressions delivered in the fourth quarter were up 23% year-over-year. The average price per ad was down 22% year-over-year in the fourth quarter.

Total costs and expenses in the fourth quarter rose 22% year-over-year to $25.77 billion. This included restructuring related charges of $4.2 billion.

Full-year revenue for the company was $116.6 billion, a 1% decline year-over-year. The company had costs and expenses of $87.66 billion for the full fiscal year, up 23% year-over-year.

The company ended the fourth quarter with $40.74 billion in cash and $9.92 billion in long-term debt.

“Our community continues to grow and I’m pleased with the strong engagement across our apps. Facebook just reached the milestone of 2 billion daily actives,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

Related Link: Trading Strategies For Meta Platforms Stock Before And After Q4 Earnings 

What’s Next: Meta is guiding for first-quarter revenue to come in a range of $26 billion to $28.5 billion.

The company is guiding for fiscal year expenses to come in a range of $89 billion to $95 billion, down from a prior range of $94 billion to $100 billion.

“Our management theme for 2023 is the ‘year of efficiency’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta announced a $40-billion increase to its share buyback authorization on Wednesday. The company repurchased $27.9 billion of its shares in fiscal 2022. At the end of the fiscal year, the company had $10.87 billion remaining on its share buyback plan prior to Wednesday’s increase.

META Price Action: Meta shares are up 18% to $180.17 in after-hours trading Wednesday.

Read Next: Here's A Look At Recent Price Target Changes By Meta Analysts 

Photo via Shutterstock.

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