Meta stock price jumps on first quarter earnings beat, Zuckerberg touts artificial intelligence

• Shares of Meta rose 14% on Thursday after earnings beat Wall Street expectations.
• The social media giant reported revenue growth after three consecutive quarters of declines.
• CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promoted artificial intelligence and pledged to keep costs down during Meta’s “year of efficiency”.

Meta Platforms stock jumped Thursday after the tech giant first quarter earnings Exceeded Wall Street expectations. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also touted the tech giant’s artificial intelligence plans, vowing to keep costs low while still owning Facebook, WhatsApp and Instragram. “General Efficiency”.

Shares of the social media giant were up 14% before the opening bell, trading for less than $239 a share at 9 a.m. ET.

Investors boosted Meta after it reported earnings of $2.20 per share after its closing bell on Wednesday, beating the $2.03 per share figure that analysts had expected, according to Refinitiv. Its revenue also grew 3% year over year to $28.65 billion, reversing three consecutive quarters of declines.

in Post-earnings callMark Zuckerberg praised the company’s efforts in the field of artificial intelligence and vowed to reduce spending. Founder and CEO of Meta AI recommendations led to people spending over 24% of the time on Instagram Since TikTok launched its competitor Reels.

He added that he plans to slow hiring in 2023 to control costs. Mita has already laid off tens of thousands of workers due to several rounds of job cuts.

“When we started this business last year, our business wasn’t doing as well as I would like it to be,” Zuckerberg told analysts. “But we are now increasingly doing this work from a position of strength.”

He added, “Even as our financial situation improves, I still believe that slowing down hiring, flattening our management structure, increasing the percentage of our company in technical terms, and prioritizing projects more strictly will improve the speed and quality of our work.”

Meta was one of the best performing stocks in 2023. It’s up 74% year-to-date before Wednesday’s strong earnings performance sent another rally.

If its gains hold through Thursday’s closing bell, it will add just under $80 billion to market capitalization.

Read more: Mark Zuckerberg says people spent 24% more time on Instagram after Meta launched AI-powered reels