Meta Platforms Inc., formerly known as Facebook Inc., is the world’s leading social media group, and one of the largest digital advertising companies in the world. As the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta have roughly 3 billion daily active users across its Family of Apps operating segment. The second segment, Reality Labs, aims at building out the next big computing platforms envisioned by and named by Mark Zuckerberg as The Metaverse. This venture into augmented reality and virtual reality started with the acquisition of Oculus back in 2014. Other known subsidiaries are Giphy, Mapillary, Kustomer and a stake in Indian Reliance subsidiary Jio Platforms.

# Dorm room dreams 
Facebook, formerly known as FaceMash and later TheFacebook, was founded by and launched from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room back in 2003. It was first introduced to the world as a kind of “hot or not” platform for rating college girls’ face, and limited to Ivy League college email addresses, but soon exploded into a global connectivity revolution. Two years after launch Facebook hade 6 million users, and a year after that Mark Zuckerberg, Palantir founder Peter Thiel and the rest of the board decided to decline a one billion dollar takeover bid from Yahoo!. In fact, their internal valuation of the company was apparently closer to 8 billion, projecting one billion in revenue by 2015 – they reported closer to 6 billion, with a 44% operating margin. If you want to know more about the origins of Facebook haven’t seen The Social Network (written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher), it’s worth 120 minutes of your time. 

# Greatest acquisitions of all time? 
Six days after its first Android release, where the app got over one million downloads during the first day, Instagram got acquired by Facebook. The deal was closed just shortly before Facebook’s own IPO, and at the time considered very expensive – almost indefensible – as the price tag reached one billion dollars. Kind of ironically, this was the same price as Yahoo! offered Facebook itself back in 2006. At this time, Instagram had approximately 30-50 million users, and apparently surpassed the 2 billion mark in December 2021. Since Facebook isn’t disclosing Instagram’s financial figures we can’t know for sure, but experts suggest it reached somewhere around 25 billion dollars of revenue in 2020. If that estimate is remotely close to the truth, Instagram has got to be one of the best acquisitions of all time. 

# What is the Metaverse? 
Much like with the Internet back in the 1970’s, it is hard to fully grasp what the so called Metaverse will look like in its fully adopted form, but thought leading CEOs like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg or Microsoft’s Satya Nadella explains it as a paradigm shift in digital connectivity. The idea is to go from 2D communication, like hopping on a Zoom call with your out-of-town colleague, to 3D interaction using technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality and different types of sensors to trace your physical movements. If you have read, or seen the movie adoption of, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, you have a rough idea of how it might look in parts of the Metaverse. 

Let’s take a look at an imaginary example: You want to learn how to play the guitar. Now imagine that you could lend a free trial guitar that looks exactly like you want from a virtual Metaverse music instrument’s shop, which also includes one hour of teaching from a digital AI avatar called Slash_GnR66. You could start learning instantly straight from the comfort of your own living room, using your virtual reality headset. 

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Meta Platforms (META) Q3 2024 Summary | Quartr

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Meta Platforms Inc

AI-driven innovation, robust core growth, and infrastructure expansion define the forward strategy.

Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2026

Q4 2025 revenue up 24% to $59.9B; 2026 to bring higher costs but rising operating income.

Q4 2025

Q2 revenue up 22% to $39.1B, net income up 73%, with robust AI, user, and ad growth.

Q2 2024

Q4 revenue up 21% to $48.4B, net income $20.84B, with strong ad and AI-driven growth.

Q4 2024

Meta's AI, open-source Llama, and business messaging drive growth amid major infrastructure investment.

Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference

Q2 2025 revenue up 22%, net income strong, but regulatory and cost risks remain.

Q2 2025

Q1 2025 revenue up 16% to $42.31B; net income $16.64B; regulatory risks remain.

Q1 2025

Board recommends voting for management proposals and against all shareholder proposals.

Proxy Filing

Annual meeting covers director elections, key proposals, and board-opposed shareholder initiatives.

### Executive summary
- Q3 2024 revenue grew 19% year-over-year to $40.6B, driven by strong ad growth, AI momentum, and product innovation, with Family daily active people reaching 3.29B.
- Net income rose 35% year-over-year to $15.7B, with diluted EPS up to $6.03.
- Threads reached nearly 275M monthly active users, and engagement on Facebook and Instagram increased due to AI-driven improvements.
- Reality Labs achieved milestones with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and Quest 3S, but posted a $4.43B operating loss.
- Share repurchases totaled $8.86B and dividends paid were $1.26B in Q3 2024.

### Financial highlights
- Q3 2024 total revenue was $40.6B, up from $34.1B in Q3 2023; operating income was $17.4B, with a 43% margin.
- Net income was $15.7B, or $6.03 per share; free cash flow was $15.5B; cash and equivalents stood at $70.9B.
- Capital expenditures were $9.2B in Q3 2024, with year-to-date CapEx at $24.4B.
- Long-term debt increased to $28.82B after a $10.5B note issuance in August 2024.
- Effective tax rate for Q3 2024 was 12%, down from 17% a year ago.

### Outlook and guidance
- Q4 2024 revenue expected between $45–48B; full-year 2024 expenses forecasted at $96–98B.
- 2024 capital expenditures projected at $38–40B, with significant growth anticipated in 2025.
- Reality Labs operating losses are expected to increase meaningfully year-over-year.
- Management expects continued investment in AI and infrastructure, with sufficient liquidity for capital returns.
- Q4 2024 tax rate anticipated in the low teens.

Meta Platforms (META) Q3 2024 earnings summary

Q3 2024 earnings summary

Executive summary

Financial highlights

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