🎙️ Meta Q1 2025 – AI Surge, Threads Growth & Reality Labs Deep Dive

📅 Earning Release : April 30, 2025
💼 Company: Meta Platforms, Inc. (META)
📊 Revenue: $42.3B (+16% YoY)
💡 Theme: From ads to AI glasses — Meta’s future is intelligent and immersive.

🚀 In This Episode:
We explore how Meta kicked off 2025 with strong revenue, aggressive AI investment, and surging engagement across its apps. Despite a slight EPS miss and increasing regulatory heat in Europe, Meta is all-in on transforming user experience and business efficiency with AI.

📌 Key Highlights:

• Q1 Revenue: $42.3B, up 16% YoY (19% in constant currency)

• Operating Income: $17.6B with 41% margin

• Free Cash Flow: $10.3B

• Net Income: $13.7B, 32% margin

• Repurchased $13.4B in shares, paid $1.3B in dividends

• Q2 guidance: $42.5B–$45.5B

• 🌐 3.4B+ daily users across Meta’s apps

• 📈 Threads: 350M MAUs, +35% time spent

• 📷 Instagram: +6% time spent

• 👍 Facebook: +7% time spent

• 📲 WhatsApp: 3B+ users, 100M+ in U.S.

• 🧵 WhatsApp Status & IG Reels see billions of daily views

1. Improved Advertising

   • AI creative tools used by 30% more advertisers

   • New Reels model: +5% conversion rate

   • GEM ads model: 2x more efficient

   • Advantage+ campaigns & AI attribution tools

2. More Engaging Content

   • Better recommendations = more time spent

   • Interactive and personalized experiences on the rise

3. Business Messaging

   • AI agents coming to WhatsApp & Messenger

   • Vision: Every business to have an AI agent like they have websites today

4. Meta AI Platform

   • Nearly 1B active users across apps

   • Personalized experiences, voice, visual content

   • Strongest engagement from WhatsApp, followed by Facebook

   • Standalone Meta AI app launched in U.S.

5. AI Devices (Wearables & VR)

   • 🕶️ Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses: sales tripled YoY

   • Live translation & voice features rolled out

   • 🎮 Quest 3S making VR more accessible

   • Future vision: glasses as the form factor of the Metaverse

• Released first Llama 4 models — intelligent, multimodal, low-latency

• “Behemoth” model with 17B parameters per expert

• Building infra for fast deployment & high personalization

• CapEx revised up to $64B–$72B for 2025, focused on AI infra

• EU says “subscription with no ads” may violate DMA

• 🧾 16% of revenue exposed to EU changes

• Meta to appeal but may face revenue impact by Q3

• 📉 Lower gaming ad revenue due to tough YoY comps

• 🧮 Ad spend dip from Asia-based U.S. exporters amid policy shifts

• Revenue: $412M, down 6% YoY

• Expenses: $4.6B, up 8%

• Operating loss: $4.2B

• Focus on scaling AI Glasses, similar to other major consumer devices

• Long-term monetization play post-user growth

🎙️ Why Listen?
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is building toward full general intelligence. This episode unpacks how Meta is turning vision into reality through massive AI investmen