Facebook group Meta pays first dividend
Meta's advertising business continues to run at full speed - and the Facebook group is paying its first dividend. Revenue rose by a quarter year-on-year to 40.1 billion dollars in the past quarter, as Meta announced after the US stock exchange closed on Thursday.
At the bottom line, profits even jumped from 4.6 billion dollars a year ago to 14 billion dollars. Meta set the quarterly dividend at 50 US cents.
At the same time, the Group continues to spend a lot of money on the development of virtual worlds and the devices for them. The operating loss of Reality Labs rose to 4.65 billion dollars from 4.3 billion dollars a year earlier. Meanwhile, the division's turnover rose from 727 million to just under 1.1 billion dollars.
Investors had repeatedly expressed concern that Meta was spending too much money on a technology with uncertain profit prospects. The doubts became stronger at times last year when the online advertising business as a whole slowed down. However, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had already reiterated at the time that he saw the future in the Metaverse and would therefore keep investments high.
However, investors greeted the latest figures with enthusiasm. The Meta share price rose by over twelve percent at times in after-hours trading.
Facebook now has 2.11 billion daily active users. And 3.19 billion users access at least one of the Group's apps every day. Meta also includes Instagram and WhatsApp, among others. (SDA)
