2024-05-01 04:00:08
The American social media giant Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) doubled its net profits in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2023, up to $12.4 billion, a result that exceeds market forecasts.
Mark Zuckerberg’s company has the market excited about its prospects in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Meta also registered a turnover increase of 27%, to 36.5 billion dollars, thanks to its advertising sales in different
platforms.
“Meta’s advertising activity is in full swing,” said Max Willens, from the consulting firm Emarketer. The analyst also maintained that the company has more advertising space available and a higher average price, which allows it to obtain “enviable margins, although it continues to invest in sectors that may not contribute to generating profits for several years.”
The company said its global workforce now stands at 69,329 employees, up slightly from last quarter but below its peak of 87,000 in 2022.
Meta highlighted that it foresees higher than expected expenses this year in infrastructure and research for the development of AI.
Due to investments in AI, Meta said it anticipated full-year 2024 capital expenditures to be in the range of $35,000 to
$40 billion, compared to a previous range of $30 billion to $37 billion.
That information hit the market and Meta shares fell more than 12% in after-hours electronic trading on Wall Street.
Zuckerberg urged investors to be patient as the company moved toward AI. “Build an AI that leads
will be… a bigger objective than other experiences that we have added to our applications and this
“It will probably take several years,” he added.
Last week, the tycoon unveiled the latest version of Meta AI, an improved smart assistant built into his
Applications. This novelty is now available in more than a dozen English-speaking countries, such as Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United States.
The AI is powered by Llama 3, the company’s most powerful large language model, which the company makes available to users.
developers as an open source product to create their own tools. Meta has 3 thousand 240 million
users of at least one of its services daily, 50 million more than at the end of 2023.
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2024-05-01 04:00:08