Meta Beats Revenue Expectations Amid AI Push, But Ad Sales Growth Slows

The numbers

$40.58 billion: Meta’s Q3 revenue, up 19% YoY, narrowly topping Wall Street’s $40.3 billion estimate.

96%: The portion of Meta’s Q3 revenue driven by ad sales. This is a slight dip from Q2, when advertising accounted for 97% of its $36.5 billion in total revenue.

$15.69 billion: Net income, up 35% YoY, or $6.03 per share, hitting a quarterly record.

3.29 billion: Average daily active users across Meta apps in September 2024, up 5% YoY.

$48 billion: The top end of Meta’s Q4 revenue forecast, in line with analyst projections.

The water cooler talk

As the AI arms race picks up in Silicon Valley, Meta is ramping up its investments in the technology, especially to strengthen its ad targeting and content recommendation capabilities.

In October, Meta launched new generative AI ad tools focused on video creation. The company is also putting its AI chatbot everywhere, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. And it inked a multiyear deal with Reuters, allowing Meta AI to deliver real-time news and current event responses using Reuters’ news content. Meta AI has more than 500 million monthly active users, per company estimates.

Meanwhile, Meta is reportedly developing an AI-powered search engine in a bid lessen its reliance on Google and Microsoft’s Bing, which currently supports Meta AI.

The tech giant also rolled out new features on Threads in Q3, including insights on post performance for businesses and creators — though chief financial officer Susan Li said Meta doesn’t expect the platform to be “a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue.”

Key quotes

“Over time, there will be a broadening set of queries that people use [Meta AI] for, and monetization opportunities will exist,” said Li.

“On the business side, we want to continue making progress on this vision of [helping] small business, or any business, with a few clicks to set up an AI agent that can help do customer service and sell things to all of their customers around the world,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “That’s a huge opportunity.”