Meta reports second-quarter results after the close

Meta is scheduled to report second-quarter results after the close of regular trading on Wednesday.

Here’s what Wall Street is expecting, according to estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $7.22 adjusted
• Revenue: $60.17 billion

Meta is projected to show revenue growth of 26% from $47.52 billion in the same period a year ago, as the company’s core advertising business continues to benefit from advancements in artificial intelligence.

While Meta’s digital ad business remains healthy, the company is trying to show that it can compete directly in the market for AI models and services, where OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have big leads.

On the earnings call, investors will be listening closely to what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to say about the company’s efforts to more directly monetize its various AI-related efforts. Earlier this month, Meta debuted the Muse Spark 1.1 model, which AI chief Alexandr Wang said represents the “strongest model for agentic and coding work yet” and at a cheaper price than offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Meta also released Muse Image, which contains certain features that power users and creators can access if they sign up for one of the company’s new monthly subscription plans that were revealed in May.

The company has been aggressively investing in a new AI strategy since hiring Wang in June 2025 in a deal that involved a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, Wang’s startup. Meanwhile, Meta is pouring money into AI infrastructure as it tries to keep pace with Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft when it comes to building data centers and securing AI chips and systems needed to run models and workloads.

On Tuesday, Meta announced a venture with BlackRock to create a $14 billion data center project in El Paso, Texas, just a few weeks after disclosing that its big Hyperion data center project in rural Louisiana would cost over $50 billion. Earlier in July, Meta revealed plans to build a $9 billion data center in Alberta, Canada.

Meta shares are down 10% this year, badly trailing the Nasdaq, as Wall Street questions whether the company’s hefty investments will produce returns.

“The gap between capex intensity and diversified monetization remains the central debate for the stock,” analysts at Wedbush wrote in a report last week. They have the equivalent of a hold rating on the shares and said the uncertainty is “the reason we remain on the sidelines despite Meta’s valuation discount to peers.”

In its last earnings report in April, Meta boosted its capex forecast for the year to a high of $145 billion from $135 billion. Analysts expect Meta to post $33.9 billion in capex for the second quarter and are projecting $136.7 billion for the year.

Alphabet shares sank last week after the company hiked its guidance for 2026 capex to as much as $205 billion from a prior prediction of up to $190 billion.

Among the four leading hyperscalers, Meta is the only one without a cloud infrastructure business. But Zuckerberg has indicated recently that the company will be looking to sell some AI capacity to third parties. Anthropic is currently engaged in preliminary talks to lease AI-related computing capacity from Meta, CNBC confirmed earlier this month.

For the second quarter, Meta is expected to report 3.61 billion daily active people (DAP), according to StreetAccount, a number that refers to usage of its family of apps. Analysts anticipate second-quarter average revenue per person of $16.65.

Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality, augmented reality and AI-powered wearable devices like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, is expected to post a loss for the quarter of $5.07 billion on revenue of $423.4 million, according to StreetAccount.

WATCH: AI and capex in focus for Meta this week: Here’s what to expect.