Meta Platforms Inc topped projections for quarterly revenue and gave a strong forecast for the current period, boosted by a robust online advertising business that is making it possible for the company to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) at record levels this year.
The social-media company on Wednesday said first-quarter sales will be US$53.5 billion to US$56.5 billion, beating the US$51.3 billion average analyst estimate.
The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp said full-year capital expenditures will be US$115 billion to US$135 billion, exceeding the US$110.6 billion average analyst estimate, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Photo: Ina Fassbender, AFP
In October last year, Microsoft chief financial officer Susan Li said that capital expenditures for this year were expected to be “notably larger” than last year, primarily due to infrastructure costs, spooking some investors. Capital expenditures last year topped US$72 billion, the company said on Wednesday.
Meta reported sales of US$59.9 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, beating the US$58.4 billion that Wall Street expected on average on the strength of its advertising business. Meta executives have repeatedly said that the company’s AI investments are improving ad targeting and effectiveness.
The company made a profit of US$22.8 billion in the recently ended quarter, adding that it could take in as much as US$56.5 billion in the current quarter.
"We had strong business performance in 2025," Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in an earnings release.
Looking forward, Zuckerberg has committed publicly, including at a high-profile White House dinner, to spend US$600 billion in the US by 2028 to support AI technology, infrastructure and workforce expansion.
Meta shares gained as much as 11 percent in after-market trading after closing at US$668.73.
Meta’s virtual reality and AI-enabled hardware unit, known as Reality Labs, posted US$955 million in sales last quarter. The division continues to lose money. Reality Labs reported an operating loss of more than US$6 billion for the quarter, bringing its total 2025 losses to more than US$19 billion. Li said in a statement that she expects the unit to face similar losses in 2026.
Earlier this month, Meta cut about 10 percent of staff across Reality Labs as part of a move to shift resources away from some of the virtual reality products and into more AI-focused ventures, including its AI wearables, like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
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PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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