The owner of Facebook and Instagram posted revenue of $59.89 billion for the fourth quarter and $200.97 billion for the full year 2025, a growth of 24% and 22%, respectively.
Author: Akshita Jain | EQMint | FinTech News
Meta Boosts AI Spending for 2026
Meta Platforms Inc. expects to spend between $115 and $135 billion in 2026, up from $72.2 billion in 2025, as it accelerates the acquisition of data centres and specialised hardware to support advanced AI.
On a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said 2026 would be a “big year” for Meta’s AI ambitions, describing “personal superintelligence” – machines that could eventually surpass human cognition – as central to the company’s long-term strategy.
Meta Posts Strong Revenue, Cuts Metaverse Jobs
The owner of Facebook and Instagram posted revenues of $59.89 billion for the fourth quarter and $200.97 billion for the full year 2025, a growth of 24% and 22%, respectively.
While Meta invests resources in AI, it is also trimming some of its legacy bets. It said it is laying off about 10% of its Reality Labs staff, which oversees metaverse programs, as the company shifts focus to wearable technology.
Meta’s Chief Financial Officer, Susan Li, said the company has a projection for revenue between $53.5 billion and $56.5 billion in the first quarterof 2026.
“We anticipate revenue in the first quarterof 2026 to be in the range of $53.5-56.5 billion. We assume that foreign currency is a roughly 4% tailwind to annualized total revenue growth, at current exchange rates,” Li said.
Meta forecasts total costs for the full year 2026 to be between $162 billion and $169 billion.
The number of staff grew by 6% to 78,865 at December 31, 2025, and the debt on a long-term basis stood at $58.74 billion.
The cost of scaling AI infrastructure grew at an average annual rate of 40% in the fourth quarter to $35.15 billion and by 24% in 2025 to $117.69 billion, respectively.
Meta Doubles Down on AI as Ad Growth Fuels Big Spending
Meta, a late Al racer, has increased in size to pursue the goal of superintelligence, a theoretically impossible feat that machines outthink humans. To that end, it has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to build several massive AI data centers for superintelligence and is planning larger outlays to meet rising compute needs.
It has paid the high bills for AI through its advertising business, which grew to $58.14 billion in the fourth quarter from $46.78 billion a year earlier. Capex grew by 49%, faster than the total revenue growth of the fourth quarter 24%, but the operating margin fell by 7 percentage points.
In the last year, Meta launched ads on WhatsApp and Threads, which made them direct competitors with platforms like Elon Musk’s X, and Instagram’s Reels continue to compete with TikTok and YouTube Shorts in the lucrative short-video market.
Microsoft Share Drop Highlights Importance of Core Growth
In order to power their AI bets, which require massive amounts of compute power, Meta signed last year contracts with Alphabet, CoreWeave, Nebius, as it indicated that there was an urgent need to increase capacity due to internal constraints.
The company will encounter capacity constraints well into 2026, chief financial officer Susan Li revealed during the call.
Meta’s ad platform has been its growth engine, thus enabling advertisers to automate and personalize their campaigns and at the same time, help the company support its investments to achieve superintelligence – a theoretical stage when machines could surpass human intelligence.
According to Jesse Cohen, a senior analyst at Investing.com, long-term shareholders of the company would probably regard 2026 as a necessary transitional year for the advertising business at Meta to continue generating enough cash flow to fund the company’s AI transformation.
Microsoft, the other technology giant that announced its results on Wednesday, also saw a 66% rise in its capital expenditure in the December quarter. However, the shares of the Windows manufacturer dropped 6.5% after hours as it just managed to slightly beat the expectations for the quarterly revenue of its highly important cloud-computing business.
Meta, whose shares increased by 12.7% last year, is currently trading at 22.2 times the expected earnings for the next twelve months, whereas Alphabet is at 29.5, Amazon.com at 30, and Microsoft at 27.1 times, as per LSEG data.
For more such updates visit EQMint
Resource Link : BI
