Meta Platforms exceeded expectations yesterday with first quarter earnings results that reported revenue of $42.31 billion USD. That’s a 16% increase over $36.45 USD for the same period in 2024.

Daily active people using Meta’s family of apps – Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp – was an average of 3.43 billion for March 2025, a YoY increase of 6%. Ad impressions rose by 5% YoY across the apps while the average price of an ad also experienced an increase of 10% YoY.

Although Mark Zuckerberg believes the future of computing to be in AI and augmented reality, Meta’s Reality Labs division, which builds the Quest VR headsets, Ray-Ban smart glasses, and the Horizon Worlds platform, posted a $4.2 billion loss.

In the report, Meta also forecast Q2 2025 revenue to range from $42.5 billion to $45.5 billion USD .

In the CFO’s commentary section of the report, Meta indicates that for the rest of this year, it has increased its spending outlook to reflect additional data centre investments to support its AI efforts and the cost of infrastructure hardware. The majority of its capital
expenditures in 2025 will be directed to its core business.

The tech giant says it continues to monitor the regulatory landscape, including in the EU and the U.S. that could significantly impact its business and financial results. It noted that the European Commission (EC) recently announced its decision that our subscription for
no ads model is not compliant with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and expects it would need to make modification to its model that count impact its European business and revenue. Meta plans to appeal that decision.