Meta reports Q3 revenue up 19% YoY to $40.59B, net income up 35% YoY to $15.69B, and family daily active people up 5% YoY to 3.29B on average for September 2024

Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) today reported financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2024.

Meta Investor Relations 2024-10-31

Context & Ripple Effects

Meta’s 2024 results had already moved from a strong first quarter to a second quarter with $39B in revenue and $13.5B in net income. This quarter extends that sequence while family daily active people rose more slowly than revenue and profit.

The result also marks a clear reversal from Meta’s revenue and profit declines in Q3 2022. It matters because the company is now producing substantially more earnings from an already massive daily audience base.

First-order effects

Meta exits the quarter with a larger revenue and net-income base, increasing its financial capacity relative to the prior-year period.
Revenue and net income grew faster than family daily active people, indicating that the business’s financial expansion outpaced audience expansion this quarter.

Second-order effects

Advertisers and other commercial partners face a platform whose scale continues to grow, while Meta has more room to fund product, infrastructure, and distribution priorities from operating results.
Rival consumer platforms must compete against a Meta whose audience reach and earnings are rising together, rather than relying on user growth alone to support its position.

Third-order effects

If this gap between financial growth and audience growth persists, the key competitive measure for mature social platforms will increasingly be value captured per active user or device, not headline user additions.
The 2022-to-2024 reversal suggests large platforms can regain earnings momentum without a comparable acceleration in audience growth; whether that remains durable depends on future monetization and cost performance.

The trend: Mature consumer platforms are being judged increasingly on monetization and profit growth from established global audiences rather than on user growth alone.

Discussion

@laurengoode Lauren Goode on threads
On Meta's Q3 2024 earnings call, an analyst asks about Meta's reported plans for its own search engine. CFO Susan Li artfully dodges question, focuses on Meta AI as it exists currently, says it provides results both through search engine partnerships, like Bing and Google, and a…
@katieharbath Katie Harbath on threads
More to come on this as I'm processing it a bit in real time, but I'm listening to Meta's investors call and their comments about how AI is being used to help with recommendations and ads give some insight of how we might see AI used in elections in 2026 and 2028.
@rpn Roberto P. Nickson on threads
Meta just delivered its most profitable quarter on record ($40.6 billion) Stock is down after-hours (maybe just overbought) likely due to investors spooked over how much they will spend over the coming years developing AI. But I think that's a bullish indicator. Llama adoption …
@lanceulanoff Lance Ulanoff on threads
This slide from Meta Earnings tells quite a story. Look at the revenue generated from Reality Labs as compared to the losses. Advertising is still the key revenue driver (by a mile) so, obviously, it's critical that Meta integrates ad opportunities into its AI and AR offerings.
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Following the $META call, the key takeaway is the core business is doing great and they're aggressively investing in AI to become the next big thing. My guess is that big thing is related to monetizing search. [video]
@thetranscript_ @thetranscript_ on x
$META CEO: “For WhatsApp, the U.S. remains one of our fastest-growing countries, and we just passed a milestone of 2 billion calls made globally every day.”
@thetranscript_ @thetranscript_ on x
$META CEO: “The Llama 3 models have been something of an inflection point in the industry. I'm even more excited about Llama 4, which is now well into its development. We're training the Llama 4 models on a cluster that is bigger than 100,000 H100s, or bigger than anything I've…
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
Facebook apps made $22 billion in op. profit in Q3, empowered by AI technology (Nvidia GPUs). Google said all 7 of its major 2 billion user products have incorporated Gemini AI. Alphabet made $28.5 billion in Q3 profit. The hand wringing over AI ROI is silly at this point.
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
investor on meta earnings call: “plz stop spending so much money on data centers” Mark Zuckerberg: “no ❤️”
@swiftstories Mike Swift on x
Susan Li, @Meta CFO, again warns of “regulatory headwinds”....."We continue to monitor an active regulatory landscape, including the increasing legal and regulatory headwinds in the EU and the US that could significantly impact our business and our financial results."
@swiftstories Mike Swift on x
Zuckerberg on this #AI powered moment in the tech industry: “This may be the most dynamic moment that I've seen in our industry, and I'm focused on making sure that we build some awesome things and make the most of the opportunities ahead.” #Metaearnings
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
Also worth noting that Meta stock has been on a run, up 22% since August, compared to Nasdaq only up 8%.
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
Not entirely clear yet what's driving $META stock down after decent earnings, but one surprising thing is 9% headcount growth (despite Zuck's vows of “permanent” efficiency): Headcount was 72,404 as of September 30, 2024, an increase of 9% year-over-year.
@stockmarketnerd Brad Freeman on x
Snapshot of a Strong (yes, strong) $META Quarter: [image]
@dampedspring Andy Constan on x
Meta capex way below estimate [image]
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
The sneaky impressive metric; Daily Active People was 3.29B, up 5% y/y. This is the same growth they reported in March of 2023, despite the law of large numbers getting crazy difficult with about half of the world's online population using a Meta product daily. More evidence th…
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
$META's guide was solid, effectively guiding December revenue up by 3.5% (typically hitting the high end of the range).
@timnitgebru @timnitgebru on x
Mine is bigger than yours is the “innovation” we're seeing...
@peard33 Paresh Dave on x
The race for better generative AI is also a race for more computing power. On that score, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta appears to be winning. https://www.wired.com/... w/ @willknight
@zuck Mark Zuckerberg on threads
Threads now has almost 275M monthly actives and more than 1M daily sign-ups 🔥
@alexheath Alex Heath on threads
this app now has 275 million monthly users, up from 200 million in August, says @zuck on Meta's earnings call just now seeing more than 1 million sign-ups per day now. Threads is on track to becoming “our next major social app,” he says
@ceciliakangwriting Cecilia Kang on threads
Departures from X have helped. But don't underestimate the built-in Insta subs. Huge advantage
@alexheath Alex Heath on threads
CFO says later on the call that “we don't expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of revenue” in 2025, aka no ads in here anytime soon
@richardlawler Richard Lawler on threads
Yeah, in terms of the more normal people i see posting regularly that's about right
@lanceulanoff Lance Ulanoff on threads
If we strip out all of X's bots, you're probably dead even. Well done.
@ryanschwartztv Ryan Schwartz on threads
But I was told everyone was leaving and signing up for Bluesky. 🤣
@georgescriban @georgescriban on threads
Roughly 50% of Twitter's monthly user base. Definitely getting to the point where Threads is too big to ignore.
@vishesh92 Vishesh Raisinghani on threads
Threads is on fire and I think it's inevitable this will be a billion-person app within a few years
@abelian_cat Paul Pantea on threads
Threads has now almost 275mn monthly active users. Once ads and brand deals start happening here, it's over. It'll be filled with insta type influencers and their brain dead trends, and low tier meme slop. Let's enjoy the light show before the nuclear mushroom engulfs us.
@laurengoode Lauren Goode on threads
We need to figure out a new name for Metcalfe law/network effect when these numbers are due in large part to the fact that the entity already has 3 billion+ daily active users across its family of apps and is easily able to shovel some of them into its newest app
@pkafka Peter Kafka on threads
This is up from 150mm in April. So approaching 100% growth in 6 months. Question for you, a person using Threads: does this place feel like it has nearly double since the spring?
@alexcartaz Alex on threads
*Threads has marginal conversion of click throughs from their 2B+ active users across FB + Insta that, maybe once a week or every few weeks, click a deep link insertion from threads and pop over for like a few minutes a month Would be my guess Bc the VIPs aren't here and it feels…
@masonpelt Mason Pelt on threads
I know Musk bailed on the fight, but have you considered just jumping him?
@mattnavarra Matt Navarra on threads
Zuck is creeping up for you Elon. 🚀
@martinsfp @martinsfp on threads
👀 tbh they have to get people *really* addicted here before they start pumping ads into the feed. — RE: https://www.threads.net/...
@kurtwag8 Kurt Wagner on threads
Threads Monthly users: April - 150m July - 175m Aug - 200m Oct - “almost” 275m That's a lot of growth in one year (even if they are pushing Threads to people in IG)
@txmctrades @txmctrades on x
As someone with over a decade working for a mobile dev, user counts are garbage stats that tell you nothing about the frequency of use of your network nor its growth. They are trivially fudged. And for a network like Facebook with several billion installed users, 275M sucks
@stockmarketnerd Brad Freeman on x
$META Threads now has 275 million Monthly Actives per Zuck just now. Compares to 30 million less than a year ago.
@zerohedge @zerohedge on x
*META'S THREADS APP HAS ALMOST 275 MILLION MONTHLY USERS literally people who log in once a month
@swiftstories Mike Swift on x
Li says @Meta #AI “continues to be on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by end of year.” Has over 500 million monthly active users. #Meta
@sung.kim.mw Sung Kim on threads
I guess advertising is coming to @threads, Meta's top line growth is slowing down.
@lexnfx Alexei Oreskovic on x
Someone on $META earnings call asked for an ETA on the “peak losses” date for Reality Labs...
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
Reality Labs lost $4.4B in Sept, compared to a loss of $4.5B in Jun-24. Not a whole lot to read into this number given over the last six quarters the segment has reported a mix of sequential increases and decreases in the loss. Bottom line, I believe they're still on track to i…
@vettechtrader Chad Kusserow on x
Have to dig in to $META but muted reactions likely just a function of limited rev upside and guide- eps .78 beat but need to dig in if clean but revs not even a 1% beat; guide barely above street- capex tweaked up, Exps tweaked slightly down
@munster_gene Gene Munster on x
This (they come in at the high end of the range) implies Dec-24 revenue growth of 20% y/y, compared to 19% they just reported Sept quarter.
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
wall street is happy that meta's big spending on AI is bringing in more money this year wall street is not happy that meta's big spending on AI will cost it more money next year https://www.nytimes.com/...
@kalihays1 Kali Hays on threads
Mark Zuckerberg says actually, no, we don't have enough AI generated content yet. He's gonna get us some more, don't worry. “I think were going to add a whole new category of content which is AI generated or AI summarized content...And I think that that's gonna be very exciting…
@cinematological.bsky.social @cinematological.bsky.social on bluesky
Billion dollars a quarter for 8% [embedded post]
@jenncutter.bsky.social Jenn Cutter on bluesky
I always side-eye internal stats but, like, also. . . is this really enough of an RoI for what these things cost? [embedded post]

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