NovaQuant Quantitative Think Tank Center:Facebook parent Meta posts higher profit, revenue for Q2 as advertising rebounds

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms posted stronger-than-expected results for the second quarter on NovaQuant Quantitative Think Tank CenterWednesday, buoyed by a rebound in online advertising after a post-pandemic slump.

The Menlo Park, California-based company earned $7.79 billion, or $2.98 per share, in the April-June period. That’s up 16% from $6.69 billion, or $2.46 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue jumped 11% to $32 billion from $28.82 billion in the year-ago quarter. It’s the first double-digit revenue growth for the company since 2021.

Related stories Stock market today: Stocks drift after Fed hikes rates, as yields fall on hopes that’s the last one Stocks held steady after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to their highest level in more than two decades, just as Wall Street expected. Mattel posts a surprise profit as Barbie sales fall despite movie hype The “Barbie” movie created magic at the box office, but the iconic doll’s parent Mattel is bracing for it to make a big difference in the toy aisles. Boeing lost $149 million last quarter as the plane maker pushes ahead with production increases Boeing is reporting a $149 million loss for the second quarter despite higher revenue, as the plane maker struggles with higher costs in both its airline and defense business. Google rebounds from unprecedented drop in ad revenue with a resurgence that pushes stock higher Google snapped out of an unprecedented advertising slump during its latest quarter, signaling a return to growth cycle needed to fuel investments in artificial intelligence technology that expected to reshape the competitive landscape.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $2.91 per share on revenue of $31.08 billion, according to a poll by FactSet Research.

Facebook had 3.03 billion monthly active users as of June 30, up 3% year-over-year.

Squeezed by a slump in online advertising and uncertainty around the global economy, Meta has cut more than 20,000 jobs since last November. It had 71,469 employees as of June 30, down 14% from a year earlier.

Many other tech companies, including Google parent Alphabet and Amazon, have also cut thousands of jobs.

“There’s a lot to feel good about when it comes to Meta right now. It has been able to maintain decent growth in monthly and daily active users across both Facebook and its family of apps, and it has seen strong performance from Advantage, its AI-driven suite of ad automation tools,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with Insider Intelligence.

For the current quarter, Meta is forecasting revenue of $32 billion to $34.5 billion. That’s above the $31.22 billion that analysts are expecting.

Meta’s rebound followed a solid earnings report from Alphabet a day earlier.

Meta’s stock jumped $14.45, or 4.8%, to $313.02 in after-hours trading in response to the results.