Meta Platforms Q4 Earnings Highlights: Revenue Beat, EPS Beat, Company's First Dividend And More

Social media and technology company Meta Platforms META reported fourth-quarter financial results after market close Thursday.

Here are the key highlights.

What Happened: Meta Platforms reported fourth-quarter revenue of $40.11 billion, which was up 25% year-over-year. The revenue total beat a Street consensus estimate of $39.17 billion according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Earnings per share in the quarter were $5.33, which beat a Street estimate of $4.96.

The company reported 3.19 billion average family daily active people, which was up 8% year-over-year. Family monthly active people totaled 3.98 billion at the end of the quarter, which was up 6% year-over-year.

Facebook daily active users were 2.11 billion at the end of the quarter, which was up 6% year-over-year. Facebook monthly active users were 3.07 billion at the end of the quarter, which was up 3% year-over-year.

The company said its ad impressions delivered were up 2% year-over-year. For the full-year, ad impressions were up 28% year-over-year and the average price per ad was down 9% year-over-year.

Full fiscal year revenue was $134.90 billion, which was up 16% year-over-year.

The company bought $20.03 billion shares in the full fiscal year. There is $30.93 billion remaining on a current shareholder repurchase plan. The company announced a $50 billion increase to its share repurchase authorization Thursday.

Meta Platforms ended the quarter with $65.40 billion in cash and cash equivalents.

On Thursday, Meta Platforms announced it was initiating its first quarterly dividend. A dividend of 50 cents per share is payable on March 26, 2024 to shareholders of record on Feb. 22, 2024.

"We intend to pay a cash dividend on a quarterly basis going forward, subject to market conditions and approval by our board of directors," the company said.

"We had a good quarter as our community and business continue to grow," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. "We've made a lot of progress on our vision for advancing AI and the metaverse."

Related Link: Meta Stock Closes Above $400 For First Time In History Ahead Of Q4 Earnings Thursday

What's Next: Meta said it expects first quarter revenue to be in a range of $34.5 billion to $37.0 billion.

Full year expenses are guided to be in a range of $94 billion to $99 billion. The company said operating losses for Reality Labs are expected to increase "meaningfully" for the full year. Capital expenditures are expected to be in a range of $30 billion to $37 billion for the full fiscal year, an increase of $2 billion on the higher end of the prior range.

"We expect our ambitious long-term AI research and product development efforts will require growing infrastructure investments beyond this year," the company said.

The company said fiscal 2023 was a "pivotal year" for Meta.

META Price Action: Meta shares are up 12% to $442.85 versus a 52-week trading range of $167.66 to $406.36, setting new highs in the after-hours trading session.

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Image created with photos from Unsplash and Anthony Quintano via Wikimedia.