Meta posts $29b in revenue, $28b in ad revenue in Q1 2023

Meta Platforms, Inc. reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 on April 26, Wednesday.

CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the company saw a good quarter. "Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business. We're also becoming more efficient so we can build better. products faster and put ourselves in a stronger position to deliver our long-term vision,” he said.

Meta, which has been in the news for its mass layoffs, recorded a revenue of $28.65 billion, up 3% year-over-year and an increase of 6% year-on-year on a constant currency basis. Net income fell 24% this quarter compared to the same period last year.

Ad revenue from Meta’s Family of Apps increased 4% in Q1 2023 to $28.10 billion from $26.9 billion in the same quarter in 2022.

DAUs were 2.04 billion on average for March 2023, an increase of 4% year-over-year. Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.99 billion as of March 31, 2023, an increase of 2% yearover-year. Ad impressions and price per ad – In the first quarter of 2023, ad impressions delivered across our Family of Apps increased by 26% year-over-year and the average price per ad decreased by 17% year-over-year.

Meta’s projections for the second quarter peg the revenue to be in the range of $29.5 billion  to $32 billion. “Our guidance assumes foreign currency headwinds will be less than 1% to year-over-year total revenue growth in the second quarter, based on current exchange rate,” said the company.

In 2022, Meta initiated several measures to increase efficiency and realign its business. Three rounds of layoffs were planning in March 2023, reducing company size by approximately 10,000 employees.

Dan Neary, Vice President of Asia Pacific at Meta, shared some key takeaways from Q1 2023 earnings:

1) In Q1, the total number of ad impressions served across our services increased 26% and the average price per ad decreased 17%.

2) Reels continues to become more social with people resharing Reels more than 2 billion times every day, doubling over the last six months.

3) Since last quarter, the number of businesses using our other business messaging service – paid messaging on WhatsApp – has grown by 40%.

4) Since we’ve launched Reels, AI personalization has driven a more than 24% increase in total time-spent on Instagram.

5) Our AI work is also improving monetization. Reels monetization efficiency is up over 30% on Instagram and over 40% on Facebook quarter over quarter.

6) Daily revenue from Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (A+SC) is up 7x in the last six months. One case study I am excited to share is Plix, India's leading plant-based nutrition brand. Plix used A+SC to scale up purchases through their brand website and maximize Return on Ad spend (ROAS) on Meta Platform. Compared to ads without using A+SC, they achieved 31% lower cost per purchase and 50% better ROAS.

7) Online commerce was the largest contributor to year-over-year growth, followed by the healthcare and entertainment & media verticals.

"I’m incredibly proud of all the teams who have worked so hard to deliver these promising results in Q1 2023! As Mark shared, we are becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster and put ourselves in a stronger position to deliver our long-term vision," he said.