Meta reports Q1 revenue up 3% YoY to $28.6B, net income down 24% YoY to $5.7B, and family daily active people up 5% YoY to 3.02B for March 2023; META jumps 10%+

“We had a good quarter and our community continues to grow,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO.

Meta 2023-04-27

Context & Ripple Effects

This quarter extended the prior pattern: Meta’s Q1 2022 revenue had grown 7% while net income fell 21%, so the 2023 report showed a further slowdown in top-line growth alongside another profit decline. Family daily active people nevertheless rose from 2.87B to 3.02B over that interval.

It is an early trough in the arc captured by later coverage: Meta’s Q1 2024 revenue and profit rebound arrived with 3.24B family daily active people, followed by stronger Q4 2024 growth and earnings. That makes the 2023 result a useful marker of the gap between audience expansion and near-term financial performance.

First-order effects

Meta added daily users while revenue grew only 3% and net income fell 24%, putting immediate emphasis on improving the economics of its existing audience rather than relying on user growth alone.
The 10%+ share-price move signals that investors responded positively to the quarter despite weaker profit, while Meta’s reported base reached 3.02B daily people.

Second-order effects

A slower revenue trajectory relative to audience growth raises the importance of ad yield and engagement efficiency, the operating dynamic captured by Meta’s later revenue and earnings acceleration.
Advertisers and competing digital platforms gain a clearer benchmark: Meta’s scale remained resilient, but converting incremental reach into revenue was the near-term test.

Third-order effects

If audience growth continues to mature while revenue growth varies, Meta’s long-run performance will depend increasingly on revenue per active user rather than on expanding its user base alone.
The later recovery in the coverage suggests that a large social platform can reaccelerate financially without comparable user-growth acceleration, reinforcing monetization and efficiency as the key competitive levers.

The trend: This is one data point in the shift from social platforms winning through audience expansion to winning through deeper monetization of an already massive daily-user base.

Discussion

@tanayj Tanay Jaipuria on x
Meta makes $207 per year per user in the US and Canada, without charging them anything. That's more than what many subscription products (Netflix, Spotify, etc) make from their paid users
@swiftstories Mike Swift on x
The @DPCIreland is going to drop a fine orde&r to stop #datatransfers to the US in May, @Meta says in earnings release. Meta says it is concerned IDPC decision could “impact our data processing operations even after a new data # privacy framework” is done https://content.mlex.com…
@mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x
huh. Europe accounts for roughly ten percent of worldwide Facebook ads delivered to users — which may be hit depending on impending European regulation to come
@stockmarketnerd Brad Freeman on x
Facebook Daily Active Users in North America grew again. Both QoQ & YoY. Now sitting at a cool 2 billion. Its most mature app in its most mature market. But sure... $META is dead.
@jduballreports Joe Duball on x
JUST IN: Meta says in Q1 SEC filing that it expects an Irish DPC-ordered halt on EU-US transfers and an undisclosed fine by May. Meta believes EU-US Data Privacy Framework will come before the stop, but “cannot exclude the possibility that it will not be completed in time.”
@divestech Dan Ives on x
Big Tech's resilience front and center during this week's 1Q earnings season. Microsoft and Alphabet robust cloud prints now followed by a strong Meta quarter with digital advertising stabilizing. Very key week for the tech sector and so far hard to be negative at these prints.
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
Third wave of Meta layoffs coming in May — per Zuckerberg on earnings call (these are not new layoffs, they're just the previously announced cuts taking effect)
@epro Emil Protalinski on x
$META Q1 2023 Revenue up 3% to $28.6 billion Net income down 24% to $5.7 billion Family of Apps up 4% Reality Labs down 51% Reality Labs loss up 35% Family DAP up 5% to 3.02B Family MAP up 5% to 3.81B Facebook DAUs up 4% to 2.04B Facebook MAUs up 2% to 2.99B Employees down 1%
@richlightshed @richlightshed on x
@BrandoLightShed To be fair - we should really look at monthly active users, as some of the DAU increase is engagement driven sorta crazy that they added 3 million monthly actives in US and Canada to Facebook Blue this quarter 269 million vs. 266 million at year-end 2022 https://…
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
🤯 $META earnings. Half of all smartphones/month. “For the first time, we surpassed 3 billion people using at least one of our family of apps on a daily basis in March and approximately 3.8 billion people use at least one on a monthly basis.”
@rihardjarc Rihard Jarc on x
$META continues to impress with user growth (5% YoY growth this Q with a 3B base). Looking forward to hearing more on Reels on the call. From first results, it seems they are taking big share back from TikTok. The thesis of “Nobody uses Meta apps” is dead. Zuck winning again.
@sarthakgh Sar Haribhakti on x
No one uses FB narrative seems to be going well https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@thetranscript_ @thetranscript_ on x
$META CFO: “In Q1, the total number of ad impressions served across our services increased 26% and the average price per ad decreased 17%. Impression growth was primarily driven by Asia Pacific & Rest of World” [Chart: @borrowed_ideas] https://twitter.com/...
@hzhu_ @hzhu_ on x
[CNBC headline: Chinese retailers helped lift Meta's first-quarter sales in a tough online advertising market] I didn't expect Chinese advertisers could move the needle.
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
Meta's Q1 revenue slightly above the high-end of its forecast. But new, reduced op ex guidance may be what's getting Wall Street all jazzed up (stock's up 9%): Full year op ex now expected between $86B-$90B versus previous estimate of $89B-$95B.
@rihardjarc Rihard Jarc on x
$META earnings are out: -Family DAU 3.02B up 5% YoY - Family MAU 3.81B up 5% YoY - Revenue $28.65B up 3% YoY - Ad impressions up 26% YoY, Ad price down 17% YoY Guidance for Q2 $29.5B-$32B Strong earnings! Long.
@niubi Bill Bishop on x
Chinese retailers helped lift Meta's first-quarter sales in a tough online advertising market https://www.cnbc.com/... funny how they are happy to take this money while funding anti-tiktok lobbying
@richlightshed @richlightshed on x
Wouldn't you like to know who the 1 million people are who just discovered Facebook Blue this past quarter? 200 million this quarter vs. 199 million last quarter $META https://twitter.com/...
@eric_seufert Eric Seufert on x
Impressive revenue beat in Q1 2023 by $META: advertising revenue up 4% Y/Y, with ARPU up in every region. The last that Meta saw Y/Y advertising revenue growth was Q1 2022. (1/X) https://twitter.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
wow, I think this CFO answer was highly misleading. EU is 22% of its ad revenue and Facebook's largest region that delivers higher than average revenue per user (ps I'd estimate US is even less % of users but nearly half of ad revenue!) /5 https://twitter.com/...
@thetranscript_ @thetranscript_ on x
Meta Platforms with a double beat. CEO: “We had a good quarter and our community continues to grow. Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business. We're also becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster and put ourselves in a stronger... https…
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
That said, Facebook-specific ARPU was up in all geographic regions in Q1. So ARPU weakness must be somewhere else in the “family” of apps.
@borrowed_ideas @borrowed_ideas on x
$META 1Q'23 Update “There are two major technological waves driving our road map: a huge AI wave today, and a building metaverse wave for the future.” Mark Zuckerberg (1Q'23 Earnings Call) Here are my notes from tonight's earnings. https://twitter.com/...
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
$META's ARPU squeeze continued in Q1. Avg rev per user for “family” of Meta products Q1 '23: $7.59 Q1 '22: $7.72 Q1 '21: $7.75
@mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x
after 3 quarters of revenue decline, Meta had a better Q1, returning to revenue growth and passing 3 billion daily active Facebook users (wild) while picking up 37mm new FB users the theme this earnings season for 3/5 of BigTech = “not bad” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@stockmktnewz @stockmktnewz on x
3.81 Billion people use either Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp on a monthly basis That means about 47.8% of the world's population uses a $META product each month
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
this is hugely impactful, sort of buried in their earning and yet to be covered by press or any analyst. la la la, same old same old. May 12th I believe so again two weeks away. /3 https://twitter.com/...
@eric_seufert Eric Seufert on x
2/ My sense is that this recovery is driven by a) adaptations to ATT unlocked by Advantage+, Meta's “AI” empowered campaign automation tool, and b) easier comparables. Note that ARPU growth was *highest* in the United States.
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
according to my math, this quarter is only the third time where google and facebook aggregate US ad revenue grew by less than $1 billion (in the decade I've been tracking the “duopoly"). Note, they have never shrunk. So there is that. /1
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
This is the biggest challenge with trying to shift a social media product, like Tumblr or Twitter, to subscriptions. I wish it wasn't—I tried my best—but suffice it to say the per user revenue including advertising and subscriptions on @tumblr is a fraction of this. https://twitt…
@jason @jason on x
@altcap imagine if $Uber started buying back their shares & made some modest cuts!
@bigbrutha_ @bigbrutha_ on x
Ads is an amazing business. Only it needs a high threshold for an inflection point https://twitter.com/...
@robertjbateman Robert Bateman on x
$META up nearly 13% today after 3% Q1 revenue growth In matter of days, Meta will likely be ordered to stop EU-US data transfers. If followed, this would probably mean pulling out of Europe Do investors not know, not care yet, or (not unreasonably) believe it will never happen? h…
@borrowed_ideas @borrowed_ideas on x
When Facebook's DAU declined in 4Q'21 and MAU declined in 2Q'22 for the first time in its history, some feared (hoped?) for Facebook's gradual decline to irrelevance. Facebook added 37 mn DAU (now >2 Bn) and 26 MAU last quarter. ~3 Bn people now use one of Meta's apps daily. http…
@patrickmcgee_ Patrick McGee on x
Facebook officially has more than 2bn+ daily active users - up 4% YoY to 2.04bn. Not fast yearly growth, but in grand scheme of things that is nuts.
@tomaxwell Thomas Maxwell on x
why meta hasn't offered an ad free subscription: they make more money on ads than people think https://twitter.com/...
@altcap Brad Gerstner on x
Zuck. For. The. Win. $META Year of AI and Efficiency. #timetogetfit https://twitter.com/...
@mikeisaac @mikeisaac on x
@jason_kint yeah she emphasized the word “delivered” in her response which is definitely the operant meaning here
@sarafischer Sara Fischer on x
Q1 2023 was the first quarter that ⁦@Meta⁩'s year-over-year revenue grew after three consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines. https://www.axios.com/...
@mikefountains Mike Fuentes on x
The death of Facebook is the best thing to happen to civilization since adaption of farming https://twitter.com/...
@stockmarketnerd Brad Freeman on x
Pleased would be an understatement here. 🙂👍 Great quarter. Cutting & controlling costs while demand outperforms. Good combo. Ad business clearly turning a corner. In Zuck we trust. Call in 35 mins!
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
@stevesi More - there are probably about 5bn smartphones and 1bn are in China.
@scobleizer Robert Scoble on x
Advertising still making a lot of money. Google had good results too. https://twitter.com/...
@digitalshields Mike Shields on x
Apple supposedly knee capped everyone's mobile ad business. Has Meta figured out something that YouTube hasn't? https://twitter.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
to that last point, my back of the envelope based on that 10% data point would make US about 6% of Facebook's ads and everywhere else about 84%. I'm assuming everything else is a constant between US and EU (pricing, engagement) which is certainly not true but you get idea. /6
@borrowed_ideas @borrowed_ideas on x
After guiding ~$100 Bn Opex for 2023, Meta's opex guide range has come down by $6-15 Bn. Given last few years trend, it is likely to be closer to $86 Bn (including $3-5 Bn restructuring costs). https://twitter.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
bam. there it is. Facebook CFO just disclosed to expect Irish data protection commission final decision in the next few weeks. think iOS 14.5 impact - it will suspend a large part of its biz model of mining and micro targeting user data without a hail mary assist from the USG. /2
@supbagholder @supbagholder on x
“Melting Ice Cube” -Family DAU 3.02B up 5% YoY - Family MAU 3.81B up 5% YoY
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
impressive first quarter, facebook. impressive.
@emmonspired Dan on x
$META “Year of Efficiency” is the HR-friendly euphemism for “We are going to keep firing people to ensure we beat earnings every quarter.” <— This is the same mantra that every company will follow now that a working blueprint to increase stock price +100% in 2023 worked.
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Zuckerberg today on Meta earnings call: “We're exploring chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger, visual creation tools for posts in Facebook and Instagram and ads, and over time video and multi-modal experiences as well” https://www.theverge.com/...
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
quick note/correx here: 3b daily users across the FAMILY of apps, including Whatsapp and instagram 2 billion daily users on Facebook main app only https://twitter.com/...
@gugo907 Gurgen Ayvazyan on x
Considering the current environment. That was a very strong $META earnings and guidance. https://twitter.com/...
@xrandrew Andrew Woodberry on x
Meta Reality Labs' loss is growing, but at a decelerated pace. So that's a good thing! https://twitter.com/...
@thekantoarbot @thekantoarbot on x
$META with a big beat but notably not pulling back on Reality Labs spending: “We continue to expect Reality Labs operating losses to increase year-over-year in 2023.”
@calebfranzen Caleb Franzen on x
They are investing heavily into Reality Labs, for right or for wrong, and I admire their conviction. Have to have a high degree of confidence they execute. They're subsidizing RL through their Family of Apps, which is essentially an investment in their future. Love it.
@value_invest12 @value_invest12 on x
Its funny how $Meta traded down to $88 as investors were throwing the towel based metaverse spending. Nothing has really changed about reality labs investments except Zuck mentioning it less. Still, the stock is up 166%.
@stockmktnewz @stockmktnewz on x
Just say you're adding AI to Reality labs and no one will care about the losses
@grdecter @grdecter on x
META: Loses $3.99 billion this quarter on Metaverse division ALSO META: Stock up 12% after hours because they beat earnings by a few pennies. https://twitter.com/...
@hkeskiva Heikki Keskiväli on x
Zuck has restructured the whole metaverse away? 1Q23 $META earnings release mentions: “Metaverse” 0x “AI” 3x
@calebfranzen Caleb Franzen on x
$META is such a cash cow, it's stunning. • Cash & equivalents = $37.44Bn • Operating income = $7.23Bn • R&D expense = $9.38Bn • Ad revenue = $28.1Bn (and growing) This is key for me: Despite a -$3.99Bn loss from Reality Labs, their total income from operations is $7.227Bn. https:…
@sixsigmacapital @sixsigmacapital on x
$META Year of efficiency?

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