Meta posts lower Q4 profit, announces huge stock buyback
Associated PressSAN FRANCISCO — Facebook parent company Meta posted lower fourth-quarter profit and revenue on Wednesday, hurt by a downturn in the online advertising market and competition from rivals such as TikTok. But the company’s stock soared in extended trading, as its revenue beat Wall Street’s muted expectations and the Menlo Park, California-based company announced a $40 billion stock buyback. Meta’s mega stock buyback appeared to ease investors’ concerns over the company’s spending on the “metaverse” — an immersive digital universe, viewed through a headset, that Zuckerberg predicts will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology. “And with losses at its VR division mounting, Mark Zuckerberg is going to have to accept an unfortunate reality: Virtual worlds are simply not what businesses or consumers want right now.” Meta’s Reality Labs segment, which includes its virtual and augmented-reality hardware such as its headsets, as well as software and related content, posted a fourth-quarter operating loss of $4.28 billion, compared with a loss of $3.3 billion a year earlier. Meta’s monthly active users on what it calls its “family” of apps — Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger — were 3.74 billion as of Dec. 31.