Meta Revenue Rises 26% to $64.60 Billion in Third Quarter, Beating Estimates
Key Facts
Meta reported revenue of $64.60 billion for the third quarter ended September 30, 2026, up 26% year over year and above Wall Street analysts’ estimate of $63.34 billion, according to The Associated Press. Revenue was $51.24 billion in the same period a year earlier. Net income rose to $9.86 billion from $2.709 billion, a 264% annual increase, according to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Diluted earnings per share were $3.83, compared with $1.05 a year earlier. But the jump in net income came in a quarter that included a large legal charge, which reduced operating income and reported earnings per share.
The results show advertising was the stated driver of revenue growth. Advertising revenue was $63.061 billion, up 26% year over year, according to Meta’s filing. Ad impressions across the company’s apps increased 10%, while the average price per ad rose 14%. The company attributed the increase in average price to stronger advertising demand and said improved ad targeting and measurement tools were the main reason. E-commerce was the largest contributor to the increase in advertising revenue, according to the filing, while the average number of daily active people across its family of apps reached 3.64 billion in September, up 3% from a year earlier.
Meta, by contrast, included a $9.89 billion legal charge in expenses, reducing reported operating income to $12.99 billion. The company said in its filing that operating income would have been $22.88 billion excluding the charge. On the same basis, diluted earnings per share would have been $7.40 instead of $3.83. The difference shows the charge’s effect on reported operating and profitability measures for the quarter. Meta shares rose 0.5% in regular trading on Wednesday, October 21, then gained 2.9% in after-hours trading following the results, according to The Associated Press.
Muse figures offer a separate indication of uptake for the artificial intelligence product, without Meta linking it to quarterly revenue. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada had created accounts on the service, and about 25% of those who created accounts use it on a given day. The service had not launched globally, according to The Associated Press’s correction to information in the previous draft. Zuckerberg said running Muse requires substantial computing capacity. He said the company expects to improve its cost efficiency by more than tenfold over the following year, while he had described artificial intelligence in the second-quarter earnings announcement as accelerating the core business, supporting upcoming products and opening new opportunities in the enterprise sector.
Meta expects fourth-quarter 2026 revenue of between $73 billion and $76 billion, with foreign exchange rates expected to weigh about 1% on annual revenue growth, according to its filing. It also raised its range for total expenses in fiscal 2026 to $175–179 billion. The company narrowed its capital expenditure outlook to $135–145 billion, compared with a previous range of $130–145 billion. It said its artificial intelligence investments position it for continued strong growth in total revenue throughout 2027, without providing a full-year revenue forecast. At the same time, it expects Reality Labs losses to decline to about $15 billion in 2027 as it redirects investment toward priority areas, while Meta shares closed at $648.85 on October 22 and then at $644.43 on October 23.