Debate on whether meta. In the fall Might as well be quiet, at least for now.
After three consecutive quarters of declining revenue, Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, Reported Revenue for the first quarter rose 3 percent from a year earlier to $28.6 billion, Wednesday. Profit fell 24 percent to $5.7 billion, partly due to restructuring charges.
The results, which beat Wall Street expectations and Meta’s own guidance, were boosted by consumer growth. The company added 37 million daily users to Facebook, its marquee app, up 4 percent from a year ago and First time drop among its users that it reported in early 2022.
“We had a great quarter, and our community continues to grow,” Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. He added that the company is “becoming more efficient so that we can develop better products faster and position ourselves in a stronger position to deliver on our long-term vision.”
comes between performance A year of turmoil For Meta, which is trying to reinvent itself after facing shrinking revenues and what Mr. Zuckerberg has called an overburdened workforce.
He is leading the company into the so-called immersive world of the Metaverse, an untested market. Meta also faces tough competition from opponents like Tik Tik. Take advertising dollars Away from social media companies, and Apple, which has patched Facebook’s advertising technology with privacy updates to its iOS software.
These challenges, after years of relentless growth, have raised questions about Meta’s future and its weaknesses.
On Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg said in a financial results call that he had no intention of abandoning the Metaverse acquisition and that it was a long-term goal.
In an effort to turn things around, he has instead embarked on what he calls a “year of efficiency” and has reined in spending and cut the ranks of employees by more than 21,000, or about 30 percent. Meta’s stock price, which rose more than 12 percent in after-hours trading, is up 63 percent since the company’s announcement. First round of 11,000 layoffs in November.
Meta announced. 10,000 more layoffs in March. The company said Wednesday that the cuts will cost it about $1 billion in severance and related personnel.
“When we started this last year, our business wasn’t working the way I wanted it to,” Mr. Zuckerberg said on a call with investors. He added that he is confident that job cuts, streamlining our management structure will improve the speed and quality of Meta’s work.
But these actions have also hurt the morale of the employees. Workers are questioning whether they will join the layoffs. Mr Zuckerberg has said he is trying to end “managers managing managers”, the result of a glut of middle management recruitment during the pandemic.
The company said it had 77,114 employees as of March 31, down 1 percent from a year earlier.
Despite the latest results, META’s challenges remain. In the first quarter, the company’s expenses rose 10 percent from a year ago to $21.4 billion, outpacing revenue growth.
As the hype for Metaverse has died down and shifted to artificial intelligence, Meta is also trying to position itself. As a leader in the field, drawing on years of investment. Mr. Zuckerberg and his executive team have been attending weekly meetings focused on AI strategy. They have told investors that AI is helping Instagram and Facebook users recommend more relevant photos and videos.
Mr Zuckerberg said he hoped the new technology would “touch literally every single one of our products” in the future. He did not reveal specific plans, but speculated on possible products like AI-powered chatbots that could help WhatsApp users with customer service or small businesses. AI can also help make photos or videos more engaging, he said.
For now, Meta plans to continue investing heavily in data centers and infrastructure that help it grow its AI efforts, like other big tech companies.
“Our AI work is delivering great results in our apps and business,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.
