Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results; Initiates Quarterly Dividend
PR Newswire
MENLO PARK, Calif., Feb. 1, 2024
MENLO PARK, Calif., Feb. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter and full year ended December 31, 2023.
“We had a good quarter as our community and business continue to grow,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO. “We’ve made a lot of progress on our vision for advancing AI and the metaverse.”
Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Financial Highlights
Three Months Ended Twelve Months Ended
December 31, December 31,
--------- ------------------- ----------
In millions,
except
percentages
and
per share
amounts 2023 2022 % Change 2023 2022
------- --------- --------- -------- ---------
Revenue $40,111 $ 32,165 25 % $134,902 $ 116,609 % Change 16 %
--------
Costs and
expenses 23,727 25,766 (8) % 88,151 87,665 1 %
------ -------- ------- --------
Income from
operations $16,384 $ 6,399 156 % $ 46,751 $ 28,944 62 %
Operating
margin 41 % 20 % 35 % 25 %
Provision
for income
taxes $ 2,791 $ 1,497 86 % $ 8,330 $ 5,619 48 %
Effective
tax rate 17 % 24 % 18 % 19 %
Net income $14,017 $ 4,652 201 % $ 39,098 $ 23,200 69 %
Diluted
earnings
per share
(EPS) $ 5.33 $ 1.76 203 % $ 14.87 $ 8.59 73 %
Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Operational and Other Financial Highlights
-- Family daily active people (DAP) -- DAP was 3.19 billion on average for
December 2023, an increase of 8% year-over-year.
-- Family monthly active people (MAP) -- MAP was 3.98 billion as of December
31, 2023, an increase of 6% year-over-year.
-- Facebook daily active users (DAUs) -- DAUs were 2.11 billion on average
for December 2023, an increase of 6% year-over-year.
-- Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) -- MAUs were 3.07 billion as of
December 31, 2023, an increase of 3% year-over-year.
-- Ad impressions and price per ad -- In the fourth quarter of 2023, ad
impressions delivered across our Family of Apps increased by 21%
year-over-year and the average price per ad increased by 2%
year-over-year. For the full year 2023, ad impressions increased by 28%
year-over-year and the average price per ad decreased by 9%
year-over-year.
-- Revenue -- Revenue was $40.11 billion and $134.90 billion, an increase of
25% and 16% year-over-year for the fourth quarter and full year 2023,
respectively. Had foreign exchange rates remained constant with the same
periods of 2022, revenue would have been $816 million and $374 million
lower, an increase of 22% and 15% on a constant currency basis for the
fourth quarter and full year 2023, respectively.
-- Costs and expenses -- Total costs and expenses were $23.73 billion and
$88.15 billion for the fourth quarter and full year 2023, a decrease of
8% and an increase of 1% year-over-year, respectively. Restructuring
charges included in costs and expenses were $1.15 billion and $3.45
billion for the fourth quarter and full year 2023, respectively.
-- Capital expenditures -- Capital expenditures, including principal
payments on finance leases, were $7.90 billion and $28.10 billion for the
fourth quarter and full year 2023, respectively.
-- Share repurchases -- We repurchased $6.32 billion and $20.03 billion of
our Class A common stock in the fourth quarter and full year 2023,
respectively. As of December 31, 2023, we had $30.93 billion available
and authorized for repurchases. We also announced a $50 billion increase
in our share repurchase authorization today.
-- Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities -- Cash, cash
equivalents, and marketable securities were $65.40 billion as of December
31, 2023. Free cash flow was $11.50 billion and $43.01 billion for the
fourth quarter and full year 2023, respectively.
-- Long-term debt -- Long-term debt was $18.39 billion as of December 31,
2023.
-- Headcount -- Headcount was 67,317 as of December 31, 2023, a decrease of
22% year-over-year.
Meta Initiates Quarterly Dividend
Today, Meta’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of $0.50 per share of our outstanding common stock (including both Class A common stock and Class B common stock), payable on March 26, 2024 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 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.
Restructuring
Beginning in 2022, we initiated several measures to pursue greater efficiency and to realign our business and strategic priorities. As of December 31, 2023, we have completed the data center initiatives and the employee layoffs, and substantially completed the facilities consolidation initiatives.
A summary of our restructuring charges, including subsequent adjustments, for the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2023 by major activity type is as follows (in millions):
Three Months Ended December 31, 2023 Twelve Months Ended December 31, 2023
-------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------
Severance Severance
and Other Data and Other
Facilities Personnel Center Facilities Personnel Data Center
Consolidation Costs Assets Total Consolidation Costs Assets Total
------------- ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------- ----------- ----------- ------------
Cost of revenue $ 86 $ -- $ 7 $ 93 $ 177 $ -- $ (224) $ (47)
Research and
development 710 28 -- 738 1,581 413 -- 1,994
Marketing and
sales 162 16 -- 178 396 307 -- 703
General and
administrative 142 (3) -- 139 352 450 -- 802
------------- ---------- ---------- ----------- ------------- ----------- ----------- ------------
Total $ 1,100 $ 41 $ 7 $ 1,148 $ 2,506 $ 1,170 $ (224) $ 3,452
============= ========== ========== =========== ============= =========== =========== ============
During the three and twelve months ended December 31, 2022, we recorded total restructuring charges of $4.20 billion and $4.61 billion, respectively.
CFO Outlook Commentary
We expect first quarter 2024 total revenue to be in the range of $34.5-37 billion. Our guidance assumes foreign currency is neutral to year-over-year total revenue growth, based on current exchange rates.
We expect full-year 2024 total expenses to be in the range of $94-99 billion, unchanged from our prior outlook. We continue to expect a few factors to be drivers of total expense growth in 2024:
-- First, we expect higher infrastructure-related costs this year. Given our
increased capital investments in recent years, we expect depreciation
expenses in 2024 to increase by a larger amount than in 2023. We also
expect to incur higher operating costs from running a larger
infrastructure footprint.
-- Second, we anticipate growth in payroll expenses as we work down our
current hiring underrun and add incremental talent to support priority
areas in 2024, which we expect will further shift our workforce
composition toward higher-cost technical roles.
-- Finally, for Reality Labs, we expect operating losses to increase
meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development
efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and our investments to
further scale our ecosystem.
We anticipate our full-year 2024 capital expenditures will be in the range of $30-37 billion, a $2 billion increase of the high end of our prior range. We expect growth will be driven by investments in servers, including both AI and non-AI hardware, and data centers as we ramp up construction on sites with our previously announced new data center architecture. Our updated outlook reflects our evolving understanding of our artificial intelligence (AI) capacity demands as we anticipate what we may need for the next generations of foundational research and product development. While we are not providing guidance for years beyond 2024, we expect our ambitious long-term AI research and product development efforts will require growing infrastructure investments beyond this year.
Absent any changes to U.S. tax law, we expect our full-year 2024 tax rate to be in the mid-teens.