Charted: How Does Meta Make Money?
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Key Takeaways
- Meta reported a record $165 billion in revenues in 2024, fueled by AI advancements in its advertising business.
- Overall, 99% of annual revenues were from advertising while its augmented reality division, Reality Labs, brought in the remaining.
- Chinese giants Temu and Shein were among the company’s largest customers as of Q3 2024, leveraging Meta’s audience of more than three billion users across its platforms.
As Meta embeds AI into its core products, its revenue continues to reach new highs.
Overall, advertising and other services brought in $162.4 billion, driven by higher ad impressions and a 10% increase in the average price per ad. Meanwhile, Reality Labs posted a loss of $17.7 billion over the year. Since 2020, the augmented reality division has lost a staggering $60 billion.
This graphic shows how Meta makes money, based on data from its latest 10-K annual report.
Meta’s $165 Billion Revenue Playbook
As the table below shows, advertising sales accounted for virtually all of Meta’s revenues in 2024, rising by 22% over the year:
Meta attributes higher demand to improved ad performance, driven by its increasingly sophisticated AI-powered ad targeting.
In 2024, Meta’s capital expenditures totaled $39.2 billion, and this is set to jump as high as $65 billion this year. To support its growing AI-powered ad business, Meta began building six data centers last year.
Meanwhile, operating income surged by 48% to reach $69.4 billion while cash and equivalents stood at $77.8 billion, allowing the company to pay out $1.3 billion in dividends in Q4 2024 alone.
How Does Meta Make Money by Region?
As we can see in the following table, the U.S. and Canada drove the highest share of Meta’s revenues, increasing by 18% in 2024:
Asia-Pacific follows next, with revenue growing by 22% to $45 billion.
While Europe and the rest of the world comprise smaller segments, revenue grew at an even stronger rate, at 26% and 31%, respectively.
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