CEO Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>\u00a0in a statement. \u201cThe results are already showing, and I\u2019m optimistic about the potential ahead.\u201d<\/p>\nMeta said the number of daily active users on its \u201cfamily of apps\u201d \u2014 Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp and Threads \u2014 grew 3% from a year earlier to $3.6 billion. Zuckerberg said Instagram reached the 2 billion daily users milestone during the quarter, while Threads has 500 million monthly active users.<\/p>\n
The Menlo Park, California-based company had 75,472 employees as of June 30, a decrease of 1% year-over-year. This still includes the roughly 8,000 workers the company said it would lay off. Meta said its third-quarter earnings report will have the updated figure.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarnings come just as Meta pushes out an ad campaign and media blitz that aim to clarify Meta\u2019s stance and goals regarding AI. It\u2019s not surprising that Zuckerberg wants to come out with a more cohesive message around the company\u2019s AI ambitions, especially as Meta tries to carve out its own lane,\u201d said Emarketer analyst Minda Smiley. Zuckerberg wrote a glowing op-ed about AI\u2019s future in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, arguing that AI may soon deliver \u201cpersonal superintelligence to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Smiley said the \u201coptimistic, positive tone he\u2019s striking stands in stark contrast to the negative sentiment that\u2019s building toward social media companies over claims that they\u2019ve harmed and addicted kids. This juxtaposition could make it more difficult for Meta to build credibility in an area where it\u2019s already a laggard.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the current quarter, Meta is forecasting revenue in the range of $61 billion to $64 billion, the midpoint of which is lower than the $63.14 billion that analysts are expecting.<\/p>\n
Meta also raised the lower end of its expense outlook to incorporate the $2.4 billion in legal expenses. It now expects total 2026 expenses to be in the range of $165 billion to $169 billion.<\/p>\n
Expenses for the second quarter were $42.03 billion, an increase of 55% year-over-year. Meta said this includes $2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings and $1.18 billion of severance expenses in connection with the layoffs announced in May.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s free cash flow \u2014 money left over after paying operating costs and capital expenditures \u2014 dropped 91% to $784 million from $8.55 billion a year earlier.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s shares fell $24.76, or 4.2%, to $560.85 in after-hours trading after the results came out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Facebook and Instagram parent company earned $15.85 billion, or $6.18 per share, in the April-June period. That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,8084,12424,1282,74],"class_list":["post-795332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-earnings","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-meta","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}