Meta Platforms Stock Rises After Posting Upbeat Outlook for Coming Year


Facebook母公司Meta公布基础业务状况正在改善，并表示将额外回购400亿美元股票。Meta股价周三盘后最高飙升19%。


Meta面临着来自TikTok的竞争加剧，严峻的经济环境，以及苹果公司广告跟踪政策变化的影响。

Facebook母公司Meta Platforms Inc. (META)公布基础业务状况正在改善，并表示将额外回购400亿美元股票。在受困于竞争和隐私限制多年之后，该公司业务的好转获得了投资者的热烈欢迎。 6park.com
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. reported improving conditions in its underlying business and said it would buy back an added $40 billion in shares, a turnabout greeted warmly by investors after years of challenges stemming from competition and privacy restrictions. 6park.com
   
Meta股价周三盘后最高飙升19%，该公司指出其业务初现改善迹象，包括2023财年成本预测下降，以及预测第一财季收入或高至285亿美元。这将超过该公司2021财年第一财季、即苹果公司(Apple Inc., AAPL)推出隐私限制措施之前的一个财季的销售额；由于苹果公司的相关限制，Meta对数据的访问被切断，收入大受影响。在首席执行官扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)说公司招聘过于激进后，Meta去年开始裁员。 6park.com
Meta’s shares soared as much as 19% in after-hours trading as the company pointed to early signs of improvement, including a reduced estimate for costs in 2023 and a forecast that first-quarter revenue could reach as high as $28.5 billion. That would exceed the company’s sales in the first quarter of 2021, right before Apple Inc. introduced privacy measures that curtailed revenue by cutting off the company’s access to data. Meta last year began laying off employees after Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company hired too aggressively. 6park.com
  
扎克伯格表示，公司正致力于提高工作效率，裁撤中间的一些管理层级。他在分析师电话会议上表示，Meta还将“更积极地削减那些业绩不佳或可能不再那么重要的项目”。 6park.com
Mr. Zuckerberg said the company is focused on becoming more efficient, removing layers of middle management. Meta also will “be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial,” he said in a call with analysts. 6park.com
   
《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)上周援引采访内容和内部文件报道，在使用人工智能工具改善广告定位并提高其短视频产品Reels的用户参与度之后，Meta已开始看到业务复苏之路。 6park.com
The company has begun to see a path to recovery after using artificial intelligence tools to improve ad-targeting and improved user engagement with its short-form video product, Reels, The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing interviews and internal documents. 6park.com
  
周三，Meta公布季度收入为322亿美元，同比下降4.5%，连续第三个季度减少，但好于华尔街的预期。 6park.com
On Wednesday, Meta reported quarterly revenue of $32.2 billion, or a drop of 4.5% compared with a year ago and the third consecutive quarter of declining sales. Still, the sales figure was ahead of Wall Street estimates. 6park.com
   
来自TikTok的竞争加剧，经济环境严峻，加上苹果公司在2021年调整广告跟踪政策，都给数字广告市场造成拖累，削弱了Meta等一些公司的业绩。Snap Inc. (SNAP)周二预测当前财季销售额将下降多达10%。 6park.com
Heightened competition from TikTok, the tough economic climate and the fallout from Apple’s ad-tracking changes in 2021 weighed on the digital ad market, denting results for Meta and others. Snap Inc. on Tuesday predicted a plunge of as much as 10% in sales for the current quarter.  6park.com
  
Meta首席财务官Susan Li说，该公司在用新工具减轻苹果公司调整隐私政策的影响方面继续取得进展。她说：“我们看到这些工具被大量采用。” 6park.com
Susan Li, Meta’s finance chief, said the company is continuing to make progress mitigating the impact of Apple’s privacy changes with new tools. “We see strong adoption of those tools,” she said. 6park.com
  
Meta股价今年有所反弹，年初截至周三收盘累计上涨约27%。该公司去年警告称，仅苹果公司的政策调整就可能导致2022财年销售额损失100亿美元。 6park.com
Meta’s shares have rebounded somewhat this year, rising about 27% through Wednesday’s close. The company last year warned that Apple’s policy changes alone would translate to $10 billion in lost sales in 2022. 6park.com
  
Meta公布第四财季净利润为47亿美元，此前接受FactSet调查的分析师的预期为60亿美元。第四财季利润同比下降55%，但高于第三财季水平。这打破了Meta利润连续三个季度环比下降的局面，此前该公司十年来从未经历过这种连续下降。 6park.com
Meta posted a net profit of $4.7 billion for the fourth quarter against the $6 billion analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting. The latest number represented a 55% decline from the year-ago period but was higher than the three months through September. That snapped a streak of three quarters in which Meta’s profit had retreated from the preceding quarter—a slump the company hadn’t experienced in a decade. 6park.com
  
该公司表示，预计2023财年支出将在890亿至950亿美元之间，低于此前预测的940亿至1,000亿美元。 6park.com
The company said it expects its 2023 expenses to be between $89 billion and $95 billion, lower than its previous outlook of between $94 billion and $100 billion. 6park.com
  
Meta表示，第四财季的平均广告价格同比下降22%。该公司上年同期的平均广告价格上涨6%。 6park.com
Meta said its average ad price fell 22% year-over-year. In the same quarter last year, the average price per ad increased 6%. 6park.com
  
Li说，第四财季收入下降的一个原因是宏观环境不明朗导致广告需求疲软。 6park.com
Ms. Li said weak advertising demand due to the uncertain macroeconomic landscape contributed to the decline in revenue during the fourth quarter. 6park.com
  
为了与TikTok竞争，并弥补苹果公司政策变化造成的收入损失，Meta一直在大力投资人工智能工具，旨在改善该公司广告投放系统，并为其短视频功能Reels的用户提供更好的推荐。 6park.com
To combat TikTok and make up for the loss of revenue caused by Apple’s changes, Meta has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence tools aimed at improving its ad-targeting systems and making better recommendations for users of Reels, its short-video feature.  6park.com
  
该公司改进人工智能技术的努力已开始产生效果。在去年10月份的一次内部谈话中，扎克伯格和Meta首席营销官兼分析副总裁Alex Schultz将Reels消费时间增加20%归功于Facebook算法和运算系统的改进。 6park.com
The company’s push to improve its AI technology has started to yield results. During an internal talk in October, Mr. Zuckerberg and the company’s chief marketing officer and vice president of analytics, Alex Schultz, credited improvements to Facebook’s algorithms and the computing systems on which they run with a 20% gain in time spent in Reels consumption. 6park.com
  
Meta重振业务的努力有一张王牌：Facebook庞大的用户基础。Facebook第四财季的日活跃用户从前一财季的19.8亿增至20亿。 6park.com
Meta’s efforts to revitalize its business come with a trump card: Facebook’s massive user base. Facebook’s daily active user numbers reached 2 billion in the most recent quarter, up from 1.98 billion three months ago. 6park.com
  
第四财季，Facebook在美国和加拿大的日活跃用户数从此前两个财季的1.97亿增至1.99亿；该公司在欧洲的日活跃用户数从第三财季的3.03亿增至3.04亿。 6park.com
Facebook’s daily active users in the U.S. and Canada, which had remained at 197 million the last two quarters, grew to 199 million. The company’s daily users in Europe increased to 304 million, from 303 million the two previous quarters. 6park.com
  
扎克伯格在周三的一份声明中说：“我们在人工智能发现引擎和Reels上取得的进展是这方面的主要推动力。” 6park.com
“The progress we’re making on our AI discovery engine and Reels are major drivers of this,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a statement Wednesday. 6park.com
  
扎克伯格于2021年将该公司更名，以反映对所谓元宇宙的侧重，元宇宙是一种更具沉浸感的互联网，他说用户将在其中工作和娱乐。Meta的Reality Labs部门负责建立支撑这一努力的硬件和软件，生产Quest虚拟现实头盔，该部门第四财季收入为7.27亿美元，同比下降17.1%，运营亏损43亿美元。 6park.com
Mr. Zuckerberg in 2021 renamed the company to reflect a focus on the so-called metaverse, a more immersive version of the internet where he said users will work and play. Meta’s Reality Labs, the division tasked with building the hardware and software underpinning that effort, reported revenue of $727 million for the quarter, a decline of 17.1% compared with a year prior. The unit, which makes Meta’s Quest virtual-reality headsets, posted an operating loss of $4.3 billion. 6park.com
  
Horizon Worlds是Meta面向消费者的旗舰元宇宙产品，据《华尔街日报》获得的去年10月的内部文件，该服务表现未达到内部预期。Meta最初设定的目标是，到2022年底，该服务的月度活跃用户数达到50万。但相关文件显示，去年10月的数字还不到20万。 6park.com
Horizon Worlds, the company’s flagship metaverse offering for consumers, fell short of internal performance expectations, according to internal documents from October obtained by the Journal. The company had initially set a goal of reaching 500,000 monthly active users for the service by the end of 2022, but the tally in October was less than 200,000, the documents showed. 6park.com
  
该公司周三未提供新的Horizon Worlds用户数字。 6park.com
The company didn’t provide new user figures for Horizon Worlds on Wednesday. 6park.com
  
Meta在一定程度上通过收购实现发展壮大，该公司已和其他一些科技公司一样，成为寻求遏制其影响力的监管机构的目标。Meta本周赢得了一场法律斗争，一位了解相关裁决的人士称，在前夜发布的一项保密的法院裁决中，一名联邦法官拒绝叫停Meta收购虚拟现实初创企业Within Unlimited的交易，美国联邦贸易委员会(Federal Trade Commission)一些寻求阻止该交易的反垄断执法者由此受挫。 6park.com
Meta, which has grown in part through acquisitions, has been among tech companies finding itself in the crosshairs of regulators looking to curb their reach. The company won a legal skirmish this week when a federal judge, in a sealed court decision issued overnight, declined to halt its acquisition of the virtual-reality startup Within Unlimited, delivering a setback to antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission seeking to block the deal, a person familiar with the ruling said. 6park.com