Meta Platforms Inc. posted first-quarter sales that beat Wall Street estimates, a sign that the company’s advertising business is so far weathering the Trump administration’s ongoing trade war.
Sales were US$42.3 billion in the first quarter, the maker of Facebook and Instagram said Wednesday. That beat analysts’ estimates for $41.4 billion for the quarter ended March 31. The company also said current-quarter revenue will be in line with analysts’ expectations, and that it will boost spending.
Meta needs its advertising business to continue growing in order to fund an expensive expansion in artificial intelligence, which is driving the future of the business through improvements to ads, algorithms and personalization. The company raised its projection for full-year capital expenditures as it invests heavily to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google in developing large language models and chatbots.
Meta now expects to spend $64 billion to $72 billion, up from its prior outlook of $60 billion to $65 billion. The company said the updated forecast reflects “additional data center investments to support our artificial intelligence efforts as well as an increase in the expected cost of infrastructure hardware.”
Shares rose as much as 5.6 per cent in after-hours trading, after closing at $549. Meta stock was down more than 6 per cent year-to-date before the company reported earnings, still performing better than most of America’s biggest technology companies amid a market selloff spurred by the Trump administration’s trade war and increased tariffs. Advertising across Meta’s social apps make up 98 per cent of the company’s revenue.
Sarah Frier, Bloomberg News
