If you were worried that Meta Platforms Inc. would change its extravagant spending habits after the DeepSeek scandal, you should reconsider.
In addition to maintaining the $60 billion to $65 billion capital expenditures for this year that CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially announced on Facebook last week, Meta (META) management also committed to continuing to make significant investments in artificial intelligence in the years to come.
Zuckerberg mentioned “the hundreds of billions of dollars” that Meta will eventually invest in AI infrastructure during the earnings call.
Shares of Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), which were up 1% in Wednesday’s extended session, benefited from that kind of conversation. After a mixed slate of expectations and results, Meta’s stock was up 4%.
Every year will be a big one, Zuckerberg continued, but “more than usual, it feels like the trajectory for most of our long-term initiatives is going to be a lot clearer by the end of this year.” According to him, the significant investment in AI is in line with the company’s objective of delivering Meta AI, a consumer AI product, to more than one billion consumers by the end of 2025.
“I continue to think that this is going to be one of the most transformative products that we’ve made,” he stated.
Meta’s optimistic stance on AI helped offset the first quarter’s subdued expectations. The reason is a high U.S. dollar, which will undoubtedly put pressure on other large corporations with global operations that haven’t released their earnings for the current season. Meta anticipates significant currency-related difficulties.
The company’s first-quarter revenue forecast is between $39.5 billion and $41.8 billion, with the middle of that range falling short of the average estimate. FactSet-tracking analysts were searching for $41.7 billion.
Prior to the announcement, analysts pointed out that Meta’s sales forecast would be impacted by the dollar’s rising. According to the company’s release on Wednesday, Meta anticipates an impact of three percentage points.
However, there were a few noteworthy financial aspects of Meta’s fourth-quarter report. In the most recent period, total revenue increased 21% to $48.4 billion, while experts were projecting $47.0 billion. The average price per ad increased by 14%, and the company’s advertising impressions increased by 6%.
