Meta Platforms has reported a 73% surge in net income for the second quarter of 2024 (Q2 2024), $13.46bn compared to $7.78bn in the same quarter of the previous year. In Q1 2024, the parent company of Facebook had a net income of $12.36bn.
The diluted earnings per share (EPS) of the social technology company for Q2 2024 ending 30 June 2024, were $5.16, a growth of 73% compared to $2.98 in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The latest results significantly exceed analyst forecasts, with Meta shares jumping 7% during extended trading on Wednesday.
Total revenue at Meta continues to rise
During the reported quarter, Meta registered total revenue of $39bn, 22% higher than the $32bn posted in Q2 2023. In Q1 2024, the technology major’s total revenue was $36.45bn.
Meta expects its Q3 2024 total revenue to be in the range of $38.5bn and $41bn.
For the six months ending 30 June 2024, Meta’s net income was $25.83bn, compared to a net income of $13.49bn in the same period of 2023.
The company’s revenue for the six months ending 30 June 2024 was $75.52bn compared to revenue of $60.64bn in the same period of the previous year.
Meta’s family of apps (FoA) unit, which includes Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other services, earned revenue of $38.72bn in Q2 2024, compared to revenue of $31.72bn in the corresponding quarter of 2023.
Advertising revenue from the various apps in Q2 2024 was $38.33bn, compared to $31.5bn in the same period of the previous year.
The company’s Reality Labs business had revenue of $353m in the reported three months, compared to $276m in Q2 2023. This unit includes the company’s augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) related consumer hardware, software, and content.
Meta cites a growth in daily users
The parent company of Facebook said that the daily active users (DAUs) for Facebook averaged 3.27 billion in June 2024, which is a 7% increase year-over-year.
Meta’s ad impressions delivered across the company’s FoA unit in Q2 2024 increased by 10% year-over-year. The social technology company’s costs and expenses were $24.22bn an increase of 7% year-over-year in the reported quarter.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “We had a strong quarter, and Meta AI is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year. Zuckerberg has previously stated that AI profits are unlikely in the near-term.
“We’ve released the first frontier-level open source AI model, we continue to see good traction with our Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, and we’re driving good growth across our apps.”
Recently, Meta introduced its newest large language model (LLM), Llama 3.1 405B, touted as the world’s largest open-source LLM. This model advances upon its predecessor by offering new features, including synthetic data generation and the capability to train smaller models. Alongside the 405B model, Meta also launched enhanced versions of its Llama 8B and Llama 70B models.
