Meta shares surge after Facebook ekes out user growth

Facebook daily active users, a key metric for advertisers that indicates activity on the platform, were 1.96 billion.

Meta Platforms Inc surprised Wall Street with a profit beat and Facebook returning to user growth, although Meta forecast a conservative revenue outlook for the current quarter.

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Its stock rose 19% in after-hours trade on Wednesday.

Meta's profit soundly beat Wall Street targets at $2.72 per share, compared with an analyst consensus of $2.56, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. The earning beats were tempered by Meta recording its slowest revenue growth in a decade.

Facebook daily active users (DAU), a key metric for advertisers that indicates activity on the platform, were 1.96 billion, slightly higher that the estimate of 1.95 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Monthly active users came in at 2.94 billion, missing Wall Street estimates by 30 million.

Meta has lost about half of its value since the start of the year, after a dismal February earnings when it reported adecline in Facebook's daily active users for the first time and forecast a gloomy quarter, blaming factors including Apple'sprivacy changes and increased competition from platforms like ByteDance's TikTok.

"It's good news that Meta somehow managed to eke out growth in DAU. It needed to show some sort of turnaround from last quarter's performance," Insider Intelligence analyst Debra Williamson said.