Meta Platforms (1FB) Q3 2026 Earnings Report
IT:1FB Q3 2026 EPS Results
- Actual EPS
- EUR 3.44
- Consensus EPS
- EUR 5.88
- Beat/Miss
- Missed by -EUR 2.44
- One Year Ago EPS
- EUR 0.94
IT:1FB Q3 2026 Revenue Results
- Actual Revenue
- EUR 58.07B
- Expected Revenue
- EUR 56.94B
- Beat/Miss
- Beat by +EUR 1.13B
- YoY Revenue Growth
- +26.07%
Earnings Announcement Details
- Quarter
- Q3 2026
- Date
- 10/21/2026
- Time
- After Close
- Conference Call
- Wednesday, October 21, 2026
IT:1FB Upcoming Earnings
Meta Platforms's next earnings date is estimated for February 3, 2027, based on past reporting schedules.
Q3 2026 Earnings Call Audio
IT:1FB Q3 2026 Earnings Call
0:00 / 0:00
Q3 2026 Earnings Slide Deck
Q3 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Earnings Call Sentiment|Positive
The call was strongly positive overall, supported by 26% total revenue growth, record engagement across the core platforms, improving advertising performance, rapid Muse adoption, expanding AI monetization opportunities, and continued progress in glasses and enterprise AI. The main negative factors were the 68% increase in expenses, the $9.9 billion legal charge, a 37% decline in GAAP operating income, negative free cash flow, higher infrastructure and AI costs, lower Reality Labs revenue, and the significant compute and regulatory challenges still facing the company.
Company Guidance
Management expects fourth quarter 26 total revenue to be in the range of $73 billion to $76 billion, with foreign currency an approximately 1% headwind to year over year total revenue growth; full year 2026 total expenses are expected to be in the range of $175 to $179 billion, 2026 operating income excluding the Q3 legal charge is expected to be above 2025 operating income, Reality Labs losses are expected to decline compared to 2025 to a range of $18 billion to $19 billion, 2026 capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $135 billion to $145 billion, and the fourth quarter 26 tax rate is expected to be between 15% and 17%; compute cost efficiency is expected to improve by more than 10x over the next year, Reality Labs losses are expected to narrow next year to around $15 billion, and although Meta is not providing a full year 2027 revenue outlook, it expects to sustain strong overall revenue growth throughout 2027, with new AI businesses beginning contributing incremental revenue in 2027.
- Family of Apps Reaches Record Daily UsageMeta's Family of Apps reached 3.64 billion daily users, with all-time highs in engagement on Facebook and Instagram driven by strong video growth. WhatsApp also reached all-time highs, while Threads overtook X in monthly active users.
- Strong Family of Apps Revenue GrowthQ3 Family of Apps revenue was $64.2 billion, up 26% year over year. Family of Apps ad revenue was $63.1 billion, also up 26% on both a reported and constant-currency basis.
- Healthy Advertising Impressions and PricingTotal ad impressions increased 10%, driven by engagement, user growth, and ad-load optimization. The global average price per ad increased 14% year over year, driven by ad performance gains and improved macro conditions, partially offset by impression growth from lower-monetizing surfaces and regions.
- Growth in Other Family of Apps RevenueFamily of Apps other revenue reached $1.1 billion, up 59%, driven primarily by WhatsApp paid messaging and subscription revenue.
- Record Engagement Across Core PlatformsInstagram global time spent per user reached an all-time high and grew double digits year over year, with strength across Reels and Feed. Facebook Reels time spent also reached all-time highs globally and in the United States, growing double digits year over year, while Threads time spent per user grew more than 20% year over year.
- Recommendation Improvements Increased EngagementInstagram Reels relevance launches increased Reels time spent by more than 4%. Facebook's new generative retrieval architecture increased Reels watch time by 1%, and doubling the ranking model's history on Facebook Reels increased U.S. Reels watch time by 1%.
- Improved Content Freshness and UnderstandingNearly 45% of recommended Reels were less than one day old, up more than 11 percentage points from Q2. LLM-based content-understanding systems improved engagement with Instagram search results by 1% through the end of Q3.
- Lower Content Processing Costs from First-Party ModelsMeta began moving content-understanding models to its first-party Muse model family. In offline evaluations, the models outperformed prior production models and reduced per-unit content-processing costs by more than 80% across Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and ads.
- Advertising AI Improved Conversion PerformanceMeta's generative retrieval approach on Facebook Feed increased conversions by nearly 2% across targeted segments. Expanding the JEM ads-ranking model increased off-site campaign conversions by 1.7% and app ad conversions by 9.6%, while Andromeda improvements increased Facebook conversions by 1.4%.
- Business Assistant Increased Advertiser ResultsAdvertisers adopting Meta AI Business Assistant generated almost 5% more conversions at the same cost per conversion and increased advertising investment by 9% compared with similar non-adopters. In one example, Simply Organic Maple saw purchases increase 57%, cost per purchase decline 36%, and its strongest revised ad deliver a 3x return on ad spend, a 52% improvement from the original.
- Generative Advertising Tools and Partnership Ads ScaledNearly 10 million advertisers used at least one generative AI creative tool in Q3. Adoption of video-generation features grew 25% quarter over quarter. Partnership ads grew more than 97% year over year and surpassed a $15 billion annual revenue run rate, with more than 10 million creators discoverable through the Creator Marketing Hub.
- Meta 1 Subscriptions Surpassed 15 MillionMeta's unified subscription service for consumers, creators, and businesses surpassed 15 million subscriptions and trials. The service is rolling out with more than 50 features across Facebook and WhatsApp, including Meta Business Agent and Meta AI.
- Muse Achieved Rapid Early AdoptionMore than 10 million people in the United States and Canada set up Muse personal agents in approximately one and a half months. Muse ranked number one in the App Store almost every day, and about 25% of people who set it up used it on any given day.
- Muse Engagement and Retention Started StronglyManagement said Muse engagement and retention were off to a strong start, with retention appearing to improve the longer early adopters used the product. The approximately 25% daily usage level was described as more than twice the level Threads started at or where Meta believes other AI applications started.
- Muse Commerce Use Case Showed Early MomentumShopping was the most common Muse use case, with more than 25% of Muse users engaging in shopping and an average purchase size of over $200. Meta said Stripe credit limits had to be raised in the first week because transaction volumes exceeded expectations. Travel was also identified as a top use case.
- Muse Product and Model Execution AcceleratedMeta launched Muse Wonder as a frontier model, shipped Muse Spark 1.2 and 1.3, Muse Code, Muse Glimmer, Muse Spark Open, and Muse Voice, and said engagement per person in Meta AI had more than doubled since April as new models rolled out.
- Muse Has Multiple Monetization PathsMeta outlined monetization through commerce fees, subscriptions for advanced models and additional tokens, business subscriptions, workplace use, APIs, Muse Code, enterprise services, and personalization of content and ads. Management said Muse users already generate several hundred dollars of annual Family of Apps revenue on average and that Muse could reach a higher level over time due to commerce activity.
- Muse Compute Efficiency TargetMeta expects to improve Muse compute cost efficiency by more than 10x over the next year through better utilization of off-peak capacity, more efficient models, inference optimization, and higher GPU utilization. Management said this would enable Muse to be profitable once revenue lines reach scale.
- Expansion into Enterprise and Small Business AIMeta is building an Enterprise platform around model APIs, Muse Code, business agents, and other services. Management said 500 million self-identified small businesses use Meta's Family of Apps, and Muse for small businesses can support operations, customer acquisition, advertising, messaging, sales, inventory, and employee load balancing.
- Glasses Business Continued to GrowGlasses sales continued to grow rapidly, with Muse scheduled to come to Meta Glasses starting the following month. Meta expects paid subscriptions to increase and said the glasses business should begin improving meaningfully from here.
- Reality Labs Losses Expected to NarrowMeta expects Reality Labs losses to decline to $18 billion to $19 billion in 2026 and operating losses to come down to approximately $15 billion in the following year, trending toward profitability from there as investment is reallocated primarily toward AI.
- Positive Near-Term Revenue OutlookMeta expects Q4 2026 total revenue of $73 billion to $76 billion. Guidance assumes foreign currency will be an approximately 1% headwind to year-over-year total revenue growth.
- Operating Income Outlook Excluding Legal ChargeExcluding the Q3 legal charge, Meta said it continues to expect 2026 operating income to be above 2025 operating income.
- Strong Liquidity and Continued AI Investment CapacityMeta ended Q3 with $82.4 billion in cash and marketable securities and $83.7 billion in debt. Management said current capacity and scheduled capacity coming online provide flexibility to allocate resources across model training, core business growth, and new products.
- Stock Split and Expanded Funding FlexibilityMeta announced a new class of nonvoting capital stock to be distributed to existing shareholders through a stock dividend, effectively creating a 2-for-1 stock split. Trading is expected to begin in late January 2027. Management said the new share class could support capital raising, employee compensation, acquisitions, and other corporate purposes while preserving existing voting power.
IT:1FB Earnings History
| Report Date | Fiscal Quarter | Forecast / EPS | Last Year's EPS | EPS YoY Change | Press Release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 03, 2027 | 2026 (Q4) | 7.51- | 7.98 | ― | ― |
| Oct 21, 2026 | 2026 (Q3) | 5.883.44 | 0.94 | 264.76% (+2.50) | |
| Jul 29, 2026 | 2026 (Q2) | 6.465.56 | 6.42 | -13.45% (-0.86) | |
| Apr 29, 2026 | 2026 (Q1) | 6.029.38 | 5.78 | 62.36% (+3.60) | |
| Jan 28, 2026 | 2025 (Q4) | 7.387.98 | 7.21 | 10.72% (+0.77) | |
| Oct 29, 2025 | 2025 (Q3) | 6.040.94 | 5.42 | -82.59% (-4.48) | |
| Jul 30, 2025 | 2025 (Q2) | 5.296.42 | 4.64 | 38.37% (+1.78) | |
| Apr 30, 2025 | 2025 (Q1) | 4.715.78 | 4.23 | 36.52% (+1.55) | |
| Jan 29, 2025 | 2024 (Q4) | 6.077.21 | 4.79 | 50.47% (+2.42) | |
| Oct 30, 2024 | 2024 (Q3) | 4.705.42 | 3.95 | 37.36% (+1.47) |
The table shows recent earnings report dates and whether the forecast was beat or missed. See the change in forecast and EPS from the previous year.
Beat Missed