The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp announced its fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings on Wednesday, beating Wall Street expectations. According to the report, Meta’s revenue rose 21% year-over-year to $48.39 billion for the quarter and 22% year-over-year to $164.50 billion for the year.

Digital advertising accounted for most of the company’s revenue. Its advertising revenue was $46.7 billion for the quarter and $160.6 billion for the full year. Ad impressions increased 6% and 11% year-over-year for the quarter and full year, respectively. And average price per ad increased 14% and 10% year-over-year for the quarter and year, respectively.

Total costs and expenses were $25.02 billion and $95.12 billion, representing increases of 5% and 8% year-over-year for the quarter and full year, respectively. Headcount was 74,067 as of Dec 31, an increase of 10% year-over-year. Daily active people was 3.35 billion on average for December 2024, an increase of 5% year-over-year.

For the first quarter of 2025, Meta said it expects revenues in a range of $39.5 billion to $41.8 billion. Meanwhile, for the full year, it forecast expenses in a range of $114 billion to $119 billion. “We continue to make good progress on AI, glasses, and the future of social media,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO. “I’m excited to see these efforts scale further in 2025.”

Meta faced a rough start to the year, with Google Trends reporting an exponential increase in users looking to leave its platforms following the end of its third-party fact-checking program. However, the company has been actively revamping its platforms, introducing ads in Threats, and launching a new video editing app after the momentary removal of ByteDance-owned CapCut from the U.S. It has also made numerous changes in recent days, some to mirror TikTok – it switched the display on Instagram to be vertical and said it will pay TikTok creators who post to Instagram and Facebook.