Meta’s advertising machine is running again. In the final quarter of the 2023 financial year, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp was able to increase its sales by a quarter and generate a fat profit. For the first time, the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg wants to pay investors a dividend.
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In the fourth quarter of 2023, sales increased by 25 percent compared to the same period last year to 40.1 billion US dollars (36.7 billion euros), as Meta announced after the US stock market closed on Thursday. The bottom line is that profits have tripled from $4.65 billion a year ago to $14 billion (12.9 billion euros).
Meta now wants to pay a dividend for the first time and is offering investors the prospect of 50 cents per share. The dividend and earnings are well received in shareholder circles. The price of Meta shares rose by over 15 percent in after-hours trading. The group also wants to buy back its own shares worth a total of $50 billion.
Investors are reassured
Investors had repeatedly expressed concern that Meta was spending too much money on a technology with uncertain profit prospects. The doubts grew at times last year as the overall online advertising business slowed. Zuckerberg has now reiterated that Meta can invest in both artificial intelligence and virtual worlds.
The company continues to spend a lot of money on the development of the Metaverse and mixed reality glasses. The Reality Labs division’s operating loss rose from $4.3 billion to $4.65 billion, while sales increased from $727 million to just under $1.1 billion. The division burned over $16 billion in the entire fiscal year.
These future investments are offset by a savings program that has eased the burden on costs. Since the end of November 2022, the group has cut over 20,000 jobs and closed branches. In total, Meta spent almost $3.5 billion on restructuring last year.
3 billion users
Facebook now has 2.11 billion daily active users. Over 3 billion people are active on the platform at least once a month. And every day, 3.19 billion users access at least one of the company’s apps. Meta includes Instagram and WhatsApp, among others.
Threads, the meta alternative to Elon Musk’s Twitter successor X, now has 130 million monthly active users. Threads gained around 30 million users within three months. Meta launched the service in the EU in December after months of delays.
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