Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg departs the office of U.S. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) following a meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 26, 2026.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Meta shares dropped more than 5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the company missed on earnings and issued a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast.
Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: $6.18 vs. $7.22
- Revenue: $60.80 billion vs. $60.17 billion
Meta said it expects revenue this quarter of between $61 billion and $64 billion, or $62.5 billion at the middle of the range. Analysts were expecting guidance of $63.15 billion, according to LSEG. The company said that the guidance “assumes foreign currency is an approximately 1% headwind to year-over-year total revenue growth, based on current exchange rates.”
The company said that daily active people, or DAP, came in at 3.6 billion, trailing Wall Street estimates of 3.61 billion, according to StreetAccount.
For capital expenditures, Meta narrowed its guidance for the year to between $130 billion and $145 billion from a prior range of $125 billion to $145 billion. With Meta pouring money into artificial intelligencer infrastructure, Meta’s free cash flow dwindled to $784 million in the quarter from $8.55 billion a year earlier.
Meta said second-quarter total costs and expenses came in at $42.03 billion, representing an increase of 55% from a year ago. That figure includes $2.4 billion of charges related to legal proceedings and $1.18 billion of severance expenses in connection with the company’s layoffs that began in May.
Net income for the period slid 13% to $15.85 billion from $18.34 billion, or $7.14 per share, in the same quarter last year.
Meta’s Reality Labs unit generated $4.6 billion in second-quarter operating losses while bringing in $431 million in sales. Wall Street was expecting that unit, which develops virtual reality and related AI-powered wearable devices, to record a second-quarter loss of $5.07 billion on revenue of $423.4 million.
On the earnings call, investors will be listening closely to what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to say about the company’s efforts to more directly monetize its various AI-related efforts. Earlier this month, Meta debuted the Muse Spark 1.1 model, which AI chief Alexandr Wang said represents the “strongest model for agentic and coding work yet” and at a cheaper price than offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
WATCH: AI and capex in focus for Meta this week: Here’s what to expect.
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