Meta Platforms Q3 2025 Earnings: Ad Revenue Jumps 26%, One-Time Tax Charge Dents Reported Profit
Ad revenue rose 26% to $51.2B on strong AI-driven advertising, but a one-time $15.9B tax charge made reported per-share profit look unusually low.
| Q3 2025 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $1.05 |
| Revenue | $51.24B |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Revenue grew 26% year-over-year to $51.24 billion, driven by strength across Facebook, Instagram and Threads advertising and by AI-powered ad-targeting tools, which management said now generate more than $60 billion a year in run-rate revenue.
- Reported earnings of $1.05 per share look unusually low because of a one-time, non-cash $15.93 billion tax charge tied to new U.S. tax rules (the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax created by the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’). Meta said that without this one-time item, per-share earnings would have been $7.25.
- Meta spent $19.37 billion on data centers, servers and other AI infrastructure during the quarter and raised its full-year 2025 capital spending outlook to $70-72 billion, up from a prior $66-72 billion range.
- For the current quarter, Meta guided investors to expect revenue between $56 billion and $59 billion.
- Trailing-twelve-month operating and gross margins of roughly 38% and 82% show the core advertising business is still highly profitable even as Meta pours billions into AI buildout.
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta is deliberately ‘front-loading’ investment to build computing capacity ahead of what he called the next era of AI, tying the spending to future ‘superintelligence’ ambitions.
- Engagement stayed strong: about 3.5 billion people used at least one Meta app daily, Instagram passed 3 billion monthly users, and Threads reached 150 million daily users with time spent up 10%.
- The trailing-twelve-month net profit margin of about 30% and the slight year-over-year dip in trailing EPS both reflect the drag from this quarter’s one-time tax charge rather than a change in the underlying business.
Q3 2025 in context
| Metric | Sep 2025 | Sep 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $51.2B | $40.6B | +26.2% |
| Net income | $2.7B | $15.7B | -82.7% |
| Free cash flow | $11.2B | $16.5B | -32.2% |
| Diluted EPS | $1.05 | $6.03 | -82.6% |
| Gross margin | 82.0% | 81.8% | +0.2 pts |
| Operating margin | 40.1% | 42.7% | -2.7 pts |
| Net margin | 5.3% | 38.7% | -33.4 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Sep 2025 and the quarter ended Sep 2024, as reported to the SEC.
Each company's quarter ending in calendar Q3 '25, as reported to the SEC. A peer that reported no revenue figure for that quarter is left out.
How the stock took it
Meta Platforms, Inc. closed at $751.67 on Oct 29, 2025, the last session before the report, and at $648.35 on Oct 31, 2025, the first session after it — -13.8% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 31, 2025 | $695.21 | $750.01 | +7.9% |
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Sources: company report · earnings call