Unlock the digestive of free editor
Roula Khalaf, the FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Meta reported better than the forecast results and increased spending as it increases its impetus to guide artificial intelligence, removing Wall Street’s fears for a US trading war and economic uncertainty.
Income in the company’s first quarter increased 16 percent from a year ago to $ 42.3BN, beating expectations for $ 41.4BN. Net income increased 35 percent to $ 16.7BN, much higher than $ 13.5bn consensus estimates. Meta shares increased more than 5 percent in the trading after Wednesday.
The technology giant predicts its second quarter income would be between 42.5bn $ and 45.5bn $, with the middle point of that range slightly higher than the Wall Street forecast of 43.8bn $.
“Our business is … by performing very well, and I think we are well positioned to navigate macroeconomic uncertainty,“Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with analysts.
Zuckerberg this year has doubled in his plans to make Meta “The AI Leader”, increasing the costs to develop its large -sourced and assistant language models. The company has also improved the content it recommends in users’ sources on Facebook and Instagram, as well as targeting its advertising, drivers said they were already paying.
Meta rated the total expenses in 2025 in the $ 113BN range to $ 118BN, down a bit from its preliminary perspective of $ 114bn to $ 119bn.
The scores of the bumper seemed to ensure investors’ concerns that President Donald Trump’s tariff policy and the economic uncertainty linked could knock significantly the business of meta, as well as the ambitions of Zuckerberg. Meta generates about 10 percent of its revenue from China -based traders who have recently curbed costs.
Susan Li, Meta’s financial chief, acknowledged that the company had experienced “some reduced costs in the US by Asia-based e-commerce exporters” and an abandonment of revenue from China-based advertisers in the game sector.
Meta on Wednesday raised its full capital spending forecast between 64bn and $ 72BN, from $ 60bn and $ 65BN, citing “additional investments of the data center” to support it, as well as an “expected cost of infrastructure equipment”. Li told “uncertainty” about continued trade discussions while the driver of those increased costs.
The results come a day after the smallest Snap rival refused to share the financial instructions for the second quarter with its profits, citing “uncertainty” about economic conditions in the coming months and “head heads” in the current trimester. SNAP shares closed 12.4 percent lower Wednesday.
Meta has made some recent announcements for him while competing rivals like Openai, Xai of Elon Musk and Microsoft to dominate the field of generating.
In early April, Meta released the latest repetition of his open source model, Llama 4, while on Tuesday she launched an independent app for his assistant, rivaling Openai’s Chatgpt app.
Meta also took a step towards making a Cloud provider on Tuesday, notifying Llama API, a platform of developers for those built in its Llama models, in a welcome action by analysts.
In calling with analysts, Zuckerberg said there were “big” opportunities to earn Meta, her assistant, showing recommendations and product advertising, as well as providing a premium service for more complex tasks. But he added that the company would first focus on scaling for at least another year.
Zuckerberg also said that another primary focus was to develop he agents to help businesses with customer service and sales, for example on his WhatsApp messaging platforms and the continuous development of “AIs” such as the glasses.
Meta’s chief executive has overtaken Trump, visiting the White House several times this year in an effort to improve relations with the president, as lawmakers surround him.
Meta is also fighting a legal challenge by the Federal Commission of Federal Trade of the US, which claims the company holds an illegal monopoly. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg failed to try to negotiate a solution in an attempt not to go to court.
Li also noted the European regulatory risk. She warned that a European Commission decision that its model “consent or payment” contradicts the act of EU digital markets can cause “a significant impact on our European business and income”. According to the consent or payment model, users must agree to process their personal data or pay a monthly reconciliation fee.
