Meta nearly had its best sales quarter ever during the second quarter, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported on Wednesday, as its revenue increased 22% year-over-year to $47.52 billion.
The tech giant reported growth across multiple sectors in the period: 3.48 billion people now use at least one of Meta’s apps on a daily basis, up 6% from a year ago, while Meta now has nearly 76,000 people working for it — up 7% year-over-year. Meta also reported its net income surged 36% to more than $18 billion during the second quarter.
Wall Street seemed to love Meta’s report, with the company’s stock price surging 9.61% in after-hours trading to $762 per share. If those gains hold on Thursday morning, when markets open, it would represent a new all-time high for Meta. (Its current all-time high is $747.90, which it hit in June.)
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday afternoon, said Meta had a strong quarter that will help it continue to “invest heavily” in artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg has made it clear several times this year that AI is his key focus, and on Wednesday he said Meta is making “good progress” on the latest versions of its Llama AI model.
Here are the key results from Meta’s second quarter report:
Revenue: Meta reported $47.52 billion in second quarter sales, up 22% annually; that easily surpassed the $44.80 billion analysts had projected. It also came in narrowly behind the fourth quarter of 2024, when Meta reported $48.39 billion in revenue, for the company’s best sales quarter ever.
As is usually the case with Meta, most of its sales — 97.9% to be exact — stemmed from advertisements.
Net income: Meta reported $18.34 billion in net income, which was 36% higher than a year ago. That was also the second-best profit in Meta history, following the $20.84 billion it reported during the fourth quarter of 2024.
Daily active users: Daily users of one of Meta’s apps — which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads– increased 6% to 3.48 billion. Meta did not share an update on how each platform is performing individually, after reporting Threads had hit 350 million users during its first-quarter report.
Earnings Per Share: $7.14, which topped the $5.92 EPS analysts projected.
Reality Labs — Meta’s division focused on artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality technology — continues to be the one sector of the business that is losing money. Meta reported a loss of $4.53 billion for Reality Labs during the second quarter, after it had lost $4.21 billion between Jan. and March.
Zuckerberg’s comments on continuing to invest in artificial intelligence come after he said in January this would be a”defining year for AI.” That same month, Zuckerberg said Meta would spend between $60 billion and $65 billion to “significantly” expand its AI team; the company then updated that projection during its first quarter earnings call in April, saying it planned on spending up to $72 billion this year on AI — a figure Meta reiterated in its second-quarter report on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg has put Meta’s money where his mouth is, with the company investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI, a company that offers a platform and training data for developing AI models, in June. As part of the deal, 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, Scale’s chief executive and co-founder, joined Meta to spearhead its new AI research division, dubbed the “Superintelligence” lab. Meta also recently poached four top OpenAI researchers for its AI team, as the company has been extending multiyear offers that reach up to $300 million.
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg said he wants to keep his AI team “small” and “talent dense,” which he said he is the “optimal configuration” for driving research.
Meta CFO Susan Li, in her comments accompanying Meta’s earnings release, said the company has spent about $30 billion so far this year; for comparison, Meta spent $39.23 billion in 2024. Li said Meta plans on continuing to spend big, both this year and in 2026, to fund its AI ambitions. She noted that operating expenses for the year will be between $113 billion and $118 billion, a slightly higher range than before.
“While the infrastructure planning process remains highly dynamic, we currently expect another year of similarly significant capital expenditures dollar growth in 2026 as we continue aggressively pursuing opportunities to bring additional capacity online to meet the needs of our artificial intelligence efforts and business operations,” Li said.
Heading into Wednesday, Wall Street has been on board with Meta’s AI push, with the company’s stock price up 16% since the start of the year — and up 50% since July 2024.
Li, on the company’s earnings call, said Instagram is focused on “promoting original content” and being more creator-friendly. She said two-thirds of the posts recommended to American Instagram users are now original posts, and that the company is prioritizing the “freshness” of its recommendations.
Looking ahead, Meta projected its third quarter revenue will be between $47.50 billion and $50.50 billion.
