Meta (META) reported fourth quarter earnings Wednesday that beat expectations while the company forecasted a slowdown in revenue growth in the current quarter and said expenses in 2025 would grow faster than last year.
Shares of the company initially fell 4% in after hours trading following the results, but were up about 1% near 5:00 p.m. ET.
The social media giant reported fourth quarter earnings per share of $8.02 on revenue of $48.4 billion, higher than expectations for EPS to reach $6.75 on revenue of $46.9 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates.
For the full-year, the company’s net income totaled $62.4 billion, up 59% from the $39.1 billion seen last year.
In the first quarter, however, the company sees revenue coming in between $39.5 billion-$41.8 billion, reflecting 8%-15% growth from the prior year period. In the fourth quarter, revenue 21% over last year. For the full-year 2024, revenue totaled $164.5 billion, up 22% over last year.
Meta also declined to offer a full-year revenue forecast, saying “we expect the investments we are making in our core business this year will give us an opportunity to continue delivering strong revenue growth throughout 2025.”
Wednesday’s report comes less than a week after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta plans to spend between $60 billion and $65 billion on AI infrastructure projects this year, including the construction of a data center that the executive says is so large its footprint would cover a large chunk of Manhattan.
The company had previously projected $38 billion to $40 billion in capital expenditures in 2024, up from prior estimates of $37 billion to $40 billion.
In its release on Wednesday, CFO Susan Li said expenses for 2025 should fall in a range of $114 billion-$119 billion, up from $95.1 billion in 2024.
“We expect the single largest driver of expense growth in 2025 to be infrastructure costs, driven by higher operating expenses and depreciation,” Li said.
“We expect employee compensation to be the second-largest factor as we add technical talent in the priority areas of infrastructure, monetization, Reality Labs, generative artificial intelligence (AI), as well as regulation and compliance.”
“We continue to make good progress on AI, glasses, and the future of social media,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a press release. “I’m excited to see these efforts scale further in 2025.”
Ahead of Meta’s report, which was released about 30 minutes later than is typical for the company, The Wall Street Journal reported the company had also reached a $25 million settlement with President Trump over a lawsuit brought against the company regarding its decision to suspend the president from its platforms following the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021.
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