NEW YORK/BENGALURU (April 27): Meta Platforms Inc chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday (April 26) that artificial intelligence (AI) was helping the company boost traffic to Facebook and Instagram and earn more in ad sales, as it forecast quarterly revenue well above analyst expectations.

Meta shares surged 12% in after-hours trading, adding over US$50 billion to its market value and continuing a rally in tech shares that started after Google parent Alphabet Inc and Microsoft Corp posted strong results on Tuesday.

Meta narrowed its cost outlook range for the year, saying expenses could be less than the company forecast in March, and also beat expectations for first-quarter profit and revenue, which rose for the first time in nearly a year.

The company, which has been slow to adopt AI-friendly hardware and software systems for its main business, has carried out several expensive overhauls to bolster its core business, including a massive project to upgrade AI capacity.

"At this point, we are no longer behind in building out our AI infrastructure," Zuckerberg said on a conference call. "And to the contrary, we now have the capacity to do leading work in this space at scale."

AI recommendations increased time spent on Instagram by 24% in the January-March quarter, Meta said.

"I think similar to Alphabet, a lot of Meta's AI investments have gone into the advertiser side," said James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Equities.

"So as a consumer, we're maybe not seeing the fruits of their labour in that area, but it certainly seems as if they are able to use more advanced algorithms to maintain a certain level of ad targeting."

Meta has also kicked off an aggressive cost-cutting drive, with plans to eliminate 21,000 jobs and flatten its middle-management structure, as it works towards Zuckerberg's goal of turning 2023 into the "year of efficiency".

The results indicated that austerity drive was "off to a stronger-than-expected start for Meta", said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

"In this economic environment - and after the disaster that was 2022 - a 3% year-on-year revenue growth is an accomplishment. Meta's strong guidance for second-quarter revenue is another indicator that the company may be starting to come out of the woods."

The social media giant faced a bruising 2022, as a pandemic-era e-commerce boom sputtered, while rivals like TikTok captured young users and Apple Inc's privacy updates cut access to the user data around which it built its ad business.

Spending on the AI retooling has spiked the company's capital expenditures, which came in slightly under expectations at US$7.1 billion for the quarter. Analysts had forecast US$7.2 billion in capital expenditures in the quarter, based on the company's annual forecast of US$30 billion to US$33 billion, which it kept unchanged.

The company left open the possibility that it could increase capital expenditures, as it builds products for generative AI, an emerging technology that can craft human-like writing, art and other content.

"Zuckerberg is well aware that his spending habits are being watched very carefully, and any renewed efforts to shift the budget to untested areas won't go down well," said Sophie Lund-Yates, the lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

"That said, it's very hard to penny-pinch your way to the top, leaving Meta walking a very fine line between keeping the lights on and making the future bright enough to excite investors."

Meta said it continues to expect operating losses in its metaverse-oriented Reality Labs unit to increase in 2023. The company had been investing billions of dollars into the unit, which lost US$13.7 billion last year.

Zuckerberg said he remains committed to the investments.

"A narrative has developed that we're somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision. I just want to say upfront: That's not accurate," he said. "We've been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both."

Meta narrowed its annual expenses forecast to between US$86 billion and US$90 billion, down from the US$86 billion to US$92 billion it predicted in March, when it announced its second round of lay-offs.

The company said its quarterly price per ad decreased 17% from a year earlier, while it expects current-quarter revenue of between US$29.5 billion and US$32 billion, compared with analysts' estimates of US$29.53 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Net profit for the first three months of the year fell to US$2.20 per share from US$2.72 a year earlier, but beat expectations of US$2.03 a share.

Revenue for the first quarter rose 3% to US$28.65 billion, beating an average estimate of US$27.66 billion.

  - Reuters