Social media giant Meta Platforms (META) gained in after-hours trading after reporting earnings for its second quarter of Fiscal Year 2024. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $5.16, which beat analysts’ consensus estimate of $4.72 per share.
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In addition, sales increased by 22.1% year-over-year, with revenue hitting $39.07 billion. This beat analysts’ expectations of $38.31 billion and was driven by a 10% increase in ad impressions, along with a 10% increase in average price per ad.
Turning to the company’s user base, family daily active people, which is defined as users who visited at least one of the company’s apps, averaged 3.27 billion in June 2024, a 7% year-over-year increase.
Interestingly, investors could have anticipated the solid year-over-year growth by simply looking at Meta’s website traffic. As the image below shows, the total estimated visits jumped by 25.72% when compared to the same quarter of last year.
Looking forward, management now expects revenue for Q3 2024 to be in the range of $38.5 billion to $41 billion. For reference, analysts were expecting $39.179 billion. As a result, Meta’s guidance is considered solid since the midpoint of $39.75 billion is above estimates.
Is Meta a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on META stock based on 24 Buys, two Holds, and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 47% rally in its share price over the past year, the average META price target of $549.35 per share implies 16.23% upside potential. However, it’s worth noting that estimates will likely change following today’s earnings report.
