Meta raised its 2025 capital expenditure outlook to $64 billion to $72 billion as first-quarter revenue rose 16.1% to $42.31 billion

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, from public records. Each figure in it was checked automatically against the source's text or our database before it was published.

Meta Platforms reported revenue of $42.31 billion for the quarter ended Mar 31, 2025, up 16.1% from $36.46 billion a year earlier, in its Form 10-Q, the quarterly report a US-listed company files with the SEC, filed May 1, 2025. Against the same quarter a year earlier, operating income rose to $17.56 billion from $13.82 billion, net income to $16.64 billion from $12.37 billion and diluted earnings per share to $6.43 from $4.71. Advertising brought in $41.39 billion of the $41.9 billion earned by the Family of Apps segment. Reality Labs, the segment for its virtual, augmented and mixed reality hardware, software and content, had revenue of $412 million, down 6%, as lower Meta Quest sales were partly offset by higher sales of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.1^,2^,3^,4^,5^,6^,7^,8^,9^,10^,11^,12^,13^,14^,15^,16

Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $13.69 billion in the quarter, and the filing said $12.94 billion of purchases of property and equipment reflected continued investment in servers, data centers and network infrastructure. The 10-Q said Meta anticipated 2025 capital expenditures of approximately $64 billion to $72 billion to support its core business and generative AI efforts. The earnings release of Apr 30, 2025 called that an increase from a prior outlook of $60-65 billion, reflecting additional data center investments to support AI efforts and a higher expected cost of infrastructure hardware. It said the majority of 2025 capital expenditures would still go to the core business. Meta also said it expected its AI initiatives to require increased investment in infrastructure and headcount. Research and development expenses rose 22% to $12.15 billion, mostly on employee compensation and infrastructure costs, and headcount was 76,834, up 11% from a year earlier.17^,18^,19^,20^,21^,22^,23^,24^,25^,26

In the release, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Meta was making good progress on AI glasses and Meta AI, which he said had almost 1 billion monthly actives. Meta’s own non-GAAP measure of free cash flow, which subtracts purchases of property and equipment and principal payments on finance leases from operating cash flow, was $10.33 billion against $12.53 billion a year earlier, on operating cash flow of $24.03 billion. The notes to the financial statements said multiple cases, including putative class actions, filed in the United States and elsewhere alleged that Meta used copyrighted books and materials to train its AI models. They said the cases in the United States had been consolidated as Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, and that motions for summary judgment in it, including on whether fair use covers using copyrighted books for generative AI model training, were to be heard on May 1, 2025.27^,28^,29^,30^,31^,32^,33

Our records hold this 10-Q’s management discussion and notes, not its other sections or exhibits. They keep one value for each period, the latest filed, so they cannot tell whether the year-earlier figures were restated.34^,35