Facebook parent Meta stock soars despite growth slowdown

Facebook parent Meta’s first quarter profit jumped past Wall Street’s expectations despite slower revenue growth, sending shares up sharply in after-hours trading

Meta Facebook Results (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Facebook parent Meta's first quarter profit jumped past Wall Street's expectations despite slower revenue growth, sending shares up sharply in after-hours trading.

The company earned $7.47 billion, or $2.72 per share, in the January-March period. That's down 21% from $9.5 billion, or $3.30 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue rose 7% to $27.91 billion from $26.17 billion.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $2.56 per share on revenue of $28.28 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.

Meta cut a sharp contrast with Google parent Alphabet, which on Monday reported what analysts called disappointing earnings, with profit below Wall Street's expectations and revenue growth slower than in previous quarters.

Recent privacy changes by Apple have made it harder for companies like Meta to track people for advertising purposes, which also puts pressure on the company’s revenue. For months now, Meta has been warning investors that its revenue can’t continue to grow at the breakneck pace they are accustomed to, so it's likely that the quarter's single-digit revenue growth was already baked into investors' expectations.

Shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company rose $23.05, or 13.2%, to $198 in after-hours trading Wednesday. The stock has taken a hit this week amid news of Elon Musk's Twitter buyout and ended regular trading down 3.3% at $174.95.