Meta Platforms (META), the parent company of Facebook, posted stronger-than-expected Q2 earnings Wednesday and issued an upbeat revenue forecast for Q3, sending shares up more than 8% after the report.
The tech giant said it expects Q3 revenue to fall between “$47.5 billion and $50.5 billion,” topping the $46.2 billion consensus estimate from Wall Street.
For the second quarter, Meta reported earnings per share (EPS) of $7.14 on revenue of $47.5 billion, exceeding analysts’ forecasts of $5.89 EPS on $44.83 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg consensus. A year ago, Meta posted EPS of $5.16 and $39.07 billion in revenue.
Advertising revenue reached $46.5 billion, ahead of the expected $44.07 billion. Meanwhile, the Reality Labs division posted a $4.5 billion loss, slightly better than the $4.8 billion loss analysts projected.
The earnings update comes as Meta ramps up investments in AI infrastructure and talent. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the appointment of former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao—who helped develop ChatGPT—as founder and chief scientist of Meta’s Superintelligence Lab.
Meta has also invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI and brought on its CEO, Alexandr Wang. Additional high-profile hires include former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross, and Apple’s head of AI foundation models, Ruoming Pang, per Bloomberg.
The company is also pouring money into data centers. Zuckerberg revealed plans last week for massive AI infrastructure investments, including facilities like Hyperion, which will eventually support up to 5 gigawatts of capacity.
CFO Susan Li acknowledged the company’s growing expenditures, stating:
“The largest single driver of growth will be infrastructure costs, driven by a sharp acceleration in depreciation expense growth and higher operating costs as we continue to scale up our infrastructure fleet.”
She added: “Aside from infrastructure, we expect the second-largest driver of growth to be employee compensation as we add technical talent in priority areas and recognize a full year of compensation expenses for employees hired throughout 2025. We expect these factors will result in a 2026 year-over-year expense growth rate that is above the 2025 expense growth rate.”
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