Meta's shares rose more than 10% after the company reported higher-than-expected revenue in its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday. Here's how the company's results compared with expectations of analysts polled by London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG): Earnings per share: $7.14, vs. $5.92 expected; Revenue: $47.52 billion, vs. $44.80 billion expected.


Meta's second-quarter sales grew 22% year-over-year, the same pace as the same period last year.

The company's second-quarter advertising revenue was $46.56 billion, beating Wall Street expectations of $43.97 billion. In a conference call with analysts on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta's artificial intelligence technology "brings greater efficiency and profitability to our advertising system."

Meta said third-quarter sales would be between $47.5 billion and $50.5 billion, above Wall Street expectations of $46.14 billion.

The company said capital spending would be between $66 billion and $72 billion, raising the lower end of its previous forecast of $64 billion to $72 billion.

Recruiting-related compensation will be the "second largest driver of growth," Meta said, and "these factors will lead to higher year-over-year spending growth in 2026 than in 2025."

Meta's Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technology, recorded an operating loss of $4.53 billion in the second quarter on sales of $370 million. The loss was less than Wall Street expected, but sales also fell short of expectations.

Daily active users of Meta's family of apps rose to 3.48 billion in the second quarter, above analysts' expectations of 3.45 billion and up from 3.43 billion in the previous quarter.

Meta's total costs and expenses in the second quarter were $27.08 billion, up 12% year over year.

The company launched a massive hiring spree in the AI ​​space in June when it invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI, hiring the data annotation startup's CEO Alexander Wang to co-lead the newly formed Meta Super Intelligence Lab and serve as chief AI officer. Zuckerberg has overhauled its AI strategy to help Meta regain momentum amid reports of lukewarm developer response to its Llama 4 AI model.

Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Lee talked about the company's investment in Scale AI and related artificial intelligence spending during the earnings call, saying, "We also made $15.1 billion in unlisted equity investments in the second quarter, including a minority investment in Scale AI and other investment activities."

Zuckerberg outlined his vision for "personal superintelligence" in a letter published Wednesday morning. He did not cite any specific products or applications that embody this vision, but said that such cutting-edge technology should be used for "personal empowerment" rather than just automation and efficiency.

The Meta CEO further elaborated on the company's investments in artificial intelligence during the earnings call, saying "superintelligence allows people to be more creative, develop culture and community, connect with each other, and live more fulfilling lives."

"Over the past few months, we've begun to see our AI systems improve themselves, slowly but undeniably," Zuckerberg said. "What we define as superintelligence—AI that surpasses human intelligence in every aspect we can imagine—is now within our reach."

The social media company said total spending in 2025 would be between $114 billion and $118 billion, raising the lower end of its previous forecast of $113 billion to $118 billion.

Meta’s second-quarter net profit rose 36% year over year to $18.34 billion.

The company did not provide an outlook for fourth-quarter sales but said it expects year-over-year growth in the quarter "to be lower than in the third quarter as we compare it to a period of strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2024."

Google reported strong quarterly earnings last week, beating both revenue and profit estimates.

Amazon and Reddit will report second-quarter earnings on Thursday.

Snap will report its latest quarterly earnings next Tuesday, and Pinterest will report its financial results next Thursday.