Meta (META) reported its first quarter earnings on Wednesday, and while it beat analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines, a disappointing Q2 forecast sent shares of the social media giant plummeting as much as 14% in early trading Thursday.
Meta says it will see second quarter revenue between $36.5 billion and $39 billion, falling short of midpoint estimates of $38.24 billion.
In addition to the downbeat Q2 forecast, Meta CFO Susan Li raised the company’s full-year total expenses estimate from a range between $94 billion and $99 billion to between $96 billion and $99 billion due to higher infrastructure and legal costs.
On the company’s earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “As we’re scaling capex and energy expenses for AI, we’ll continue focusing on operating the rest of our company efficiently. But realistically, even with shifting many of our existing resources to focus on AI, we’ll still grow our investment envelope meaningfully before we make much revenue from some of these new products.”
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Li said Meta also continues to expect its Reality Labs division to report increased year-over-year operating losses as the company builds out its various AI, AR, and VR efforts.
“While we are not providing guidance for years beyond 2024, we expect capital expenditures will continue to increase next year as we invest aggressively to support our ambitious AI research and product development efforts,” Li said in a release.
Meta reported earnings per share of $4.71in the quarter on revenue of $36.46 billion. Wall Street was anticipating EPS of $4.30 on revenue of $36.12 billion, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Meta stock had been on a tear, climbing 131% over the last 12 months and more than39% year to date. That’s far better than chief rival Google (GOOG, GOOGL) which is up 50%in the last 12 months and 13%year to date.
While part of Meta’s stock performance has to do with a recovery in the digital advertising market, the company’s stock price also rocketed higher last quarter after the social media company announced it was initiating a $0.50 per share dividend and increased its stock buyback authorization by $50 billion.
The company did not announce any updates to its shareholder return initiatives on Wednesday.
The chatbot, however, has already garnered controversy after it joined a private Facebook group for mothers in Manhattan and claimed to have a child of its own, 404 Media reported.
On the metaverse front, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Monday that Meta will make its Horizon operating system for headsets open source, allowing third-party companies like Lenovo and Microsoft to use it to build their own devices using the software. The idea is to bring more headsets to market while increasing Meta’s reach in the AR/VR space.
The company also stands to benefit significantly if Congress’s TikTok ban, which President Biden signed into law on Wednesday, survives legal challenges. If the app is locked out of the US, it stands to reason that users and creators would turn to rival platforms like Instagram to scratch their social media itches.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
