The share price of META rose by 14% in an extended session after the company announced its 4Q23 earnings report and first-ever dividend payment.
The company’s revenue in 4Q23 grew by 25% YoY to $40.1 billion from $32.2 billion, stepping over the LSEG expectation of $39.18 billion with an earning per share (EPS) of $5.33. This marks the fastest growth rate for the company since mid-2021.
Regarding Reality Labs, developing virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, the unit had surpassed its record sales expectation from LSEG of $804 million to reach $1.1 billion, pushed by the robust sales of its Quest device, though it recorded $4.65 billion in losses from the unit operation. The company, however, emphasized the belief that the metaverse is the computing platform of the future and expected the losses to increase meaningfully.
Meanwhile, META will pay its first-ever dividend of 50 cents per share to investors on March 26, which comes from $65.4 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of 2023. The company expects its 1Q24 sales to be around $34.5 billion to $37 billion, while analysts forecast around $33.8 billion of revenue.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company made a lot of progress on the vision for advancing AI and the metaverse, while pointing out that AI advancement had helped META in regard to the ad business, which grew faster than its rival, Google.
