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Meta Platforms (META) reported second quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, beating estimates on the top and bottom line, and sending the company's stock up almost 8% in premarket trading Thursday.
Meta's revenue numbers came in above expectations, totaling $32 billion against the $31.06 billion estimated by Wall Street. The company also guided to revenue of $32 billion-$34.5 billion for the current quarter, more than the $31.2 billion expected by analysts.
The company reported earnings per share of $2.98, more than the $2.92 expected by analysts.
"We had a good quarter," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. "We continue to see strong engagement across our apps and we have the most exciting roadmap I've seen in a while with Llama 2, Threads, Reels, new AI products in the pipeline, and the launch of Quest 3 this fall."
The Facebook and Instagram parent also reported ad revenue of $31.5 billion, more than the $30.43 billion expected.
Meta's ad impressions — key to the company's monetization of its platforms — jumped 34% year-over-year, as the price per ad went down by 16% in that same period.
"Impression growth was primarily driven by Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world," Meta CFO Susan Li told analysts in the company's earnings call.
Facebook's daily active user counts also topped expectations, as the company reported 2.06 billion as compared to estimates of 2.03 billion.
However, the company did report a wider operating loss than expected in its VR division Reality Labs. Reality Labs lost $3.74 billion in Q2, more than the $3.68 billion Wall Street expected the division to lose.
And the company expects to see these losses continue as it keeps making AR and VR investments.
In a statement, Li said, "for Reality Labs, we expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem."
In 2022, Reality Labs lost more than $13 billion.
The company's newest headset, the Meta Quest 3, will be coming out in the fall, just as the VR race is getting hotter with Apple (AAPL) entering the space with its mixed-reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, later this year.
On the company's earnings call, Zuckerberg said that, though others are entering the space, Meta spearheaded the tech. "We pioneered mixed reality with our Quest Pro headset, and Quest 3 takes it to a whole new level," he told analysts.
"Now, others in the industry are, of course, working on bringing mixed reality to the market too, but Quest 3 is going to be the first mainstream accessible device that we expect many millions of people will get to experience."