Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at WSJ Innovators, held at the Museum of Modern Art on October 29, 2025, in New York City (Lexie Moreland/Getty Images)

Meta rises after sales, earnings beat and Q1 revenue guidance exceeds expectations

Even with spending much higher than expected, Meta still expects operating income to increase year on year in 2026.

Rani Molla

1/28/26 4:09PM

Meta released its fourth-quarter results after the close on Wednesday, with sales coming in at a record high of $59.9 billion, well above the $58.4 billion Wall Street had expected, and earnings per share of $8.88 also far north of the $8.19 consensus estimate.

The stock jumped more than 6% in after-hours trading.

For the current quarter, the Mark Zuckerberg-led social media giant expects sales of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion, well ahead of the consensus call for $51.3 billion.

However, those higher sales are coming with even more aggressive spending: Meta’s capex outlook for 2026 is $115 billion to $135 billion, exceeding the $110.6 billion estimate from analysts. Full-year estimated expenses of $162 billion to $169 billion are also much more than the consensus call for $151 billion.

“Despite the meaningful step up in infrastructure investment, in 2026 we expect to deliver operating income that is above 2025 operating income,” according to the press release.

Generally Meta’s capex growth has been growing faster than its revenue, something that’s been raising investor scrutiny more so than it has for the tech giant’s peers, which have cloud business revenue to more directly offset their spending on AI. On a related note, Meta’s expected profit margins have deteriorated since the end of 2024, unlike any of its megacap hyperscaler counterparts.

Ahead of earnings, Deutsche Bank wrote that while it thinks Meta is “positioned favorably” in the AI race, “investor fears around the potential impact to earnings from the projected spend, as well as reduced financial flexibility from the elevated investments in the near-to-mid-term, could somewhat outweigh optimism around faster growth.”

Looking forward, investors will be focused on the progress of Meta’s AI models and how its extensive spending on artificial intelligence will compare with the additional revenue earned from those investments.

Rani Molla21h

OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

Claire Yubin Oh23h

Ship-tracking app surges as Iran war continues

As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.

Rani Molla

pedal to the meta

4/28/26

Meta could be getting ready to post its highest revenue growth since 2021

Meta’s outlook and analyst estimates suggest more than 30% revenue growth in Q1.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

Tom Jones4/28/26

Google will supply AI models to Pentagon in classified deal, per The Information

Google has become the latest tech company to ink an agreement to supply the Department of Defense (War) with AI, having reportedly closed a classified deal that allows the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to The Information.

The Information initially reported talks between the Alphabet-owned company and the US government around two weeks ago, following the messy breakdown of the relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration — and the rushed OpenAI deal that took its place.

The move has reportedly sparked opposition among Google employees, with The Washington Post reporting that over 600 workers signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to ask him to bar the Defense Department from using the company’s AI models for any classified work.