Meta AI to become the most used tool globally: Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has expressed confidence in the company's future growth. This optimism is fueled by strong Q2 results and the potential of Meta AI. The company's robust Q2 performance has also led to a significant rise in share prices during after-hours trading. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg also anticipates that by year-end, Meta AI will become the most widely used artificial intelligence (AI) assistant worldwide.
Meta's advertising sector performance reassures investors
The strong performance of Meta's advertising sector has reassured investors about the company's core business strength. This comes despite an anticipated increase in expenses next year due to significant investments in AI. Debra Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insights, highlighted that a robust core business can make AI investments appear more favorable. She also noted that Meta stands out among major tech giants with AI ambitions because the Facebook parent already generates substantial advertising revenue.
Meta's Q2 earnings surpass expectations
For the April-June period, Meta reported earnings of $13.47 billion or $5.16 per share, a 73% increase from $7.8 billion or $2.98 per share a year earlier. The company's revenue also saw a 22% rise to $39.07 billion from $32 billion, surpassing analysts' predictions of earnings of $4.72 per share on revenue of $38.26 billion. The number of daily active users for its apps suite—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger—reached 3.27 billion in June, marking 7% increase from the previous year
Meta's future projections and AI investments
Meta now projects revenue between $38.5 billion and $41 billion for the third quarter. The company anticipates that infrastructure costs will significantly drive expense growth next year as it continues heavy investments in AI capacity, including data centers. Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com, stated that Meta is well-positioned to outpace its competitors in both advertising and AI due to its ability to maintain over 20% quarterly growth more efficiently than competitors like Alphabet and Microsoft.
