Meta Platforms delivered robust financial results for the final quarter and full year of 2025, with AI emerging as a central pillar of both its product development and operational strategy.
The social media giant reported revenue for the three months to the end of December rose 24% year-on-year to US$59.9bn, surpassing market expectations.
Net income increased 9% to US$22.8bn, while full-year revenue climbed 22% to US$201bn.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s Founder and CEO, said on the earnings call: “We had a strong business performance in 2025. Our business also performed very well thanks to record-breaking holiday demand and AI-driven performance gains.”
The results helped lift Meta’s share price by around 6% to 10% in extended trading following the announcement.
Advertising revenue, which generated US$58.1bn during the quarter – up 24% compared with a year earlier – continues to provide the financial foundation for Meta’s AI ambitions.
The company attributed growth to an 18% rise in ad impressions and a 6% increase in the average price per advert, with AI-driven targeting and optimisation playing an increasingly significant role.
Meta’s platforms now reach 3.58 billion daily active people across its family of apps – a 7% annual increase – with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp each approaching or exceeding two billion daily users.
However, profitability came under pressure as AI-related spending accelerated.
Quarterly costs and expenses rose 40% to US$35.1bn, reducing the operating margin to 41%, compared with 48% a year earlier.
Susan Li, Meta’s Chief Financial Officer, says the increase reflected deliberate investment choices.
She says: “Year-over-year growth was driven primarily by employee compensation expenses, legal expenses and infrastructure costs.”
She adds that higher compensation was linked to “the technical hires we’ve added this year, particularly AI talent”.
Infrastructure spending reaches new scale
Meta outlined plans for a dramatic escalation in AI investment during 2026, with capital expenditure expected to range between US$115bn and US$135bn this year – almost double the US$72.2bn spent in 2025.
The majority of that funding will be directed towards data centres, servers and networking equipment required to train and deploy increasingly sophisticated AI models.
Mark says: “We are now seeing a major AI acceleration. I expect 2026 to be a year where this wave accelerates even further.”
Between 2022 and 2025, Meta has spent roughly US$140bn on AI-related projects, as it seeks to compete with rivals such as Google and OpenAI.
“As we plan for the future, we will continue to invest very significantly in infrastructure to train leading models and deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people and businesses around the world,” the CEO adds.
AI transforms internal development processes
Meta says AI is reshaping not only its products but also the company’s internal operations.
Susan highlights substantial efficiency gains from AI-powered development tools, saying: “Since the beginning of 2025, we’ve seen a 30% increase in output per engineer.”
Mark adds that these changes could have consequences for workforce structure: “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.”
The comments followed job cuts announced in early 2025, including several hundred roles eliminated from Meta’s Reality Labs division, which houses its virtual reality and metaverse-related efforts.
Financial outlook remains strong
Meta says it remains confident in its financial position despite the aggressive investment trajectory.
The company ended 2025 with US$81.6bn in cash and marketable securities and expects to fund its expansion largely through operating cash flow.
“Despite the meaningful step up in infrastructure investment,” Susan says, “in 2026 we expect to deliver operating income that is above 2025 operating income.”
The results underline Meta’s commitment to positioning itself as a leader in the next generation of AI development, with the company betting that massive infrastructure investment today will yield competitive advantages in model performance and deployment scale.
