On an upward slope since the start of the year, the Meta group has just announced very good results for the third quarter of 2024. Over this three-month period, the group’s revenues reached $40.589 billion, up 19% year-on-year. Profit was $15,688, up 35% from the same period in 2023. “It was a good quarter, with strong product and business momentum, and with elements of our long-term vision for AI and the future of computing coming into focus.”indicated Mark Zuckerberg.
Investments in AI are already paying off
Like Google and Microsoft, Meta is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. However, these investments are already paying off. First of all, thanks to AI content recommendation, the Meta group was able to increase the time users spend on social networks. Time spent on Facebook increased by 8%, while time spent on Instagram was up 6%. On the other hand, generative artificial intelligence is already exploited by Meta on its advertising platform. During the month of September, 15 million Facebook ads were generated by advertisers using its generative AI-powered tools. And advertisers who use these tools would see a 7% increase in the number of conversions.
And Meta AI, ChatGPT’s competitor that is offered on some Meta products, is already very popular. In fact, it would already be used by 500 million people every month. On the other hand, Mark Zuckerberg evokes an important dynamic with the group’s Llama artificial intelligence models. “Usage of Llama tokens has grown exponentially this year, and the more Llama is adopted and becomes the industry standard, the more improvements in its quality and efficiency will ripple across all of our products. This quarter we released Llama 3.2, including the main small models that run on-device and open source multimodal models”he explained.
Number of users increasing
Meta’s revenue growth beat Wall Street expectations, but its apps’ user growth did not. Today, there are more than 3.29 billion people using at least one Meta app every day. Year-on-year growth is 5%. However, according to The Guardian, analysts were expecting a larger increase.
But, the positive point is that, as mentioned above, engagement is increasing, thanks to the new Meta system which relies heavily on AI to choose the content to recommend to users. On the other hand, Facebook attracts a little more young adults, particularly in the United States.
AR/VR and connected glasses: Mark Zuckerberg’s vision takes shape
Meta’s Reality Labs division, which markets its mixed reality products as well as connected glasses, is still not profitable. However, in the third quarter, this division achieved many important milestones. During its Connect conference, Meta launched a transparent version of connected glasses (but without mixed reality) that it markets with Ray-Ban. And the product was out of stock right after its release.
Meta also took advantage of the conference to lift the veil, for the first time, on its prototype of holographic glasses. Additionally, the group launched the Quest 3S mixed reality headset, which is an affordable version of the Quest 3.
- The Meta group has just presented its third quarter results
- These results are excellent, with a 19% increase in revenue and a 35% increase in profit.
- The group’s investments in AI are already paying off, as artificial intelligence has helped increase engagement on Facebook and Instagram, and the Meta AI assistant already exceeds 500 million monthly users
- Reality Labs division still unprofitable, but Mark Zuckerberg’s mixed reality vision is gradually taking shape
