Meta, Amazon beat expectations with stellar results

SAN FRANCISCO - Meta and Amazon blew through expectations in their latest quarterly results as Big Tech continued to impress Wall Street.

Meta, the tech titan behind Facebook and Instagram, reported a profit of $14-billion in the final three months of last year, beating analyst forecasts as revenue climbed to $40.1-billion in the quarter.

The company said Facebook's monthly users stood at 3.07 billion people, 20 years after the platform was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm.

"We had a good quarter as our community and business continue to grow," Meta CEO Zuckerberg said in an earnings release.

Meta shares jumped more than 14 percent to top $445 in after-market trade.

A year ago, after a catastrophic 2022 for Meta, Zuckerberg promised a "year of efficiency."

Between unprecedented layoffs, doubts about the company's embrace of virtual reality and feuds with regulators, that year had not been an easy one for the social networking giant.

Amazon also impressed investors with sales up to a more-than-expected $170 billion in the last quarter of last year, after a record-beating holiday season.

It, too, embraced "efficiency" last year eliminating some 27,000 jobs in a move it said was necessary after years of sustained hiring.

Amazon's shares have risen by 50 percent in the past 12 months as investors applauded its aggressive cost-cutting and an increase in sales.

"This Q4 was a record-breaking holiday shopping season and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon," CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.

The company said more than one billion items were purchased worldwide during the company's Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shopping events.

Amazon said its employee count stood at 1.525 million at the end of 2023, down one percent from a year before.