Meta shares jump 10% in extended trade after Q4, guidance beat expectations

Meta Platforms Inc. saw its share price jump over 10% in extended trading on Wall Street on Wednesday after its fourth quarter results and subsequent guidance surpassed analyst expectations.

For the quarter, Meta reported revenue of $59.89 billion, higher than expectations of $58.59 billion, while its Earnings Per Share (EPS) stood at $8.88, also higher than the $8.23 estimate from analysts.

Meta now expects revenue in the first quarter of 2026 to be between $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion. Analysts were working with a figure of $51.41 billion.

CFO Susan Li believes that the strong demand seen at the end of the fourth quarter has spilt over into the start of 2026, thereby aiding the strong financial performance.

Overall sales in the fourth quarter grew 24% from last year with Advertising making up for 97% of the consolidated topline. Meta's advertising business revenue stood at $58.1 billion during the quarter. Daily Active Users (DAUs) at the end of the quarter stood at 3.58 billion, in-line with expectations.

For all of 2026, Meta expects capital expenditure to be between $162 billion to $169 billion. The figure is double of the $72.2 billion that Meta spent last year. AI-related capex is expected to be between $115 billion to $135 billion, ahead of analyst estimates of $110.7 billion. Meta will continue to invest in the Superintelligence Labs and the core business and release its latest AI models in the coming months.

The only concern, if any, was the Reality Labs division, which reported another $6 billion operating loss on sales of $955 million. Analysts were projecting a loss of $5.67 billion on sales of $940.8 million. The company expects losses to remain at similar levels in the new year as well with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that this year will be the peak for the Reality Labs losses.

Meta has also warned that legal headwinds in the European Union and the US could "significantly impact its business and financial results" with many high-profile social media trials commencing this year and those "may ultimately result in a material loss."

Shares of Meta Platforms ended 0.6% lower in regular trading but are now up 9.9% afterhours to $734.