Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms has published its results for the first quarter, causing the share price to plummet. Although both sales and profits were well above analysts’ estimates, the forecast for the current quarter did not come close to meeting expectations.
Meta increased revenue between January and March by 27 percent to $36.46 billion, while profit more than doubled year-on-year to almost $12.4 billion, or $4.71 per share. On average, market observers expected revenue of $36.16 billion and a profit of $4.32 per share. The jump in profits was partly due to lower marketing expenses, which were reduced by 16 percent compared to the previous year.
For the current Q2, management forecast sales in the range of 36.5 to 39 billion dollars, while market analysts expected an average of 38 billion. The share subsequently came under a lot of pressure in after-hours trading and temporarily lost over 12 percentage points in value. In the year to date, the meta papers have gained around 40 percent. (rd)