Meta

Meta surpassed revenue expectations for revenue and profit in 2023’s third quarter.

Revenue for the quarter was $34.15 billion, a 23 percent increase from the $27.71 billion it reported during the same period a year prior.

Net income for the quarter was $11.58 billion, accounting for a 164 percent year-over-year gain from Q3 2022’s $4.4 billion.

Meta’s operating margin for the quarter was 40 percent, double the 20 percent it reported in Q3 2022.

The Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp parent reported that ad impressions delivered across Meta’s suite of apps increased by 31 percent year-over-year, even though the price per ad decreased by 6 percent during the same period.

That increase in impressions may be due to strong recent user performance across the company’s platforms. Facebook’s average daily active users were 2.09 billion for September, a 5 percent year-over-year increase, with that platform’s monthly active users standing at 3.05 billion, a 3 percent year-over-year increase.

Austerity measures to reduce expenses also contributed to the social media giant’s strong earnings. Meta’s costs and expenses totaled about $20 billion, a 7 percent decrease from the $22 billion it spent in 2022. Attributing to much of this was a shrinking of the company’s staff: headcount for the period ending September 30, 2023 was 66,185, a 24 percent year-over-year decrease (or about 21,000 employees) from the staff roster it employed during the same time last year.

In its quarterly report, Meta said it expects fourth-quarter 2023 total revenue to be in the range of $36.5-40 billion. In a call with analysts, Meta chief financial officer Susan Li said that outlook had been hampered somewhat by the Israel-Hamas conflict, contributing to “softer ads” that the company has observed with the beginning of the fourth quarter.