Meta's second-quarter 2026 revenue rose 28% to $60.8 billion while operating income fell 8%

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 reported revenue of $60.8 billion for the quarter ended Jun 30, 2026, 28% more than a year earlier, in a Form 10-Q (the quarterly report US-listed companies file with the SEC) filed on Jul 30, 2026. Operating income, the profit from running the business before interest and tax, was $18.78 billion against $20.44 billion a year earlier, a fall of 8%. Net income was $15.85 billion, or $6.18 per diluted share, down from $18.34 billion and $7.14, with the effective tax rate at 16% against 11%.1^,2^,3^,4^,5^,6^,7^,8^,9^,10^,11^,12

Total costs and expenses rose 55% to $42.03 billion; Meta said the figure included $2.40 billion of charges for legal proceedings and $1.18 billion of severance for a May 2026 headcount reduction. The 10-Q names employee compensation, data center and cloud infrastructure, legal costs and third-party AI token costs as the main drivers, and research and development spending rose 67% to $21.66 billion. Capital expenditures, counting principal payments on finance leases, were $31.08 billion, and Meta said it anticipated $130 billion to $145 billion in 2026 to support its AI efforts and core business. Meta's free cash flow, a non-GAAP measure it gets by subtracting purchases of property and equipment and finance-lease principal payments from operating cash flow of $31.86 billion, was $784 million, against $8.549 billion a year earlier.13^,14^,15^,16^,17^,18^,19^,20

At Jun 30, 2026, Meta had leases for data centers, colocations and network infrastructure that had not yet begun, with obligations of about $278.99 billion, and $349.31 billion of non-cancelable commitments, mostly for cloud capacity, servers, networks and data centers. The notes describe a Louisiana data center campus that Meta co-develops through a venture in which it holds a 20% interest, with about $27 billion in estimated development costs, and a July 2026 exclusivity agreement for a campus in El Paso, Texas.3^,21^,22^,23^,24^,25

Ad impressions delivered rose 14% and the average price per ad 12% from a year earlier. Reality Labs, which sells hardware such as Meta Quest and AI glasses, had revenue of $431 million, up 16%, and a loss of $4.62 billion from operations; the 10-Q credits higher AI glasses sales, partly offset by lower Meta Quest sales. Headcount was 75,472 on Jun 30, 2026, down 1% from a year earlier, and still counted about 8,000 employees affected by the May reduction. In the results release, filed Jul 29, 2026, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said AI was accelerating the core business and opening the door to new enterprise opportunities.26^,27^,28^,29^,30^,3^,31^,32^,33

The release also said Meta expected third-quarter revenue of $61-64 billion; its next 10-Q put revenue for the quarter ended Sep 30, 2026 at $64.6 billion.34^,35

Our records hold the 10-Q's management discussion and 13 numbered notes, not its other exhibits, and keep one value for each period, so they cannot tell whether last year's figures were restated.36^,37