Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta) builds technology that helps people connect and share, find and build communities, and grow businesses.
The company’s products enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) headsets, augmented reality (AR), and wearables. The company also helps people discover and learn about what is going on in the world around them, enable people to share their experiences, ideas, p...
Meta Platforms, Inc. (Meta) builds technology that helps people connect and share, find and build communities, and grow businesses.
The company’s products enable people to connect and share with friends and family through mobile devices, personal computers, virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) headsets, augmented reality (AR), and wearables. The company also helps people discover and learn about what is going on in the world around them, enable people to share their experiences, ideas, photos, videos, and other content with audiences ranging from their closest family members and friends to the public at large, and stay connected everywhere by accessing the company’s products. Meta is moving the company’s offerings beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented, mixed, and virtual reality to help build the next computing platform.
Across the company’s work, it is innovating in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to build new experiences that help make the company’s platform more social, useful, and immersive. The company’s AI investments support initiatives across its products and services, helping power the systems that rank content in the company’s apps, its discovery engine that recommends relevant content, the tools advertisers use to reach customers, the development of new generative AI experiences, and the tools that make the company’s product development more efficient and productive. For example, Meta AI is an assistant that's available across the company’s apps, on Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses and on the web. It is designed to help people learn, get things done, create content, and connect with others to make the most of every moment.
The company reports financial results for two segments: Family of Apps (FoA) and Reality Labs (RL). The company generates substantially all of its revenue from selling advertising placements on the company’s family of apps to marketers, which is reflected in FoA. Ads on the company’s platform enable marketers to reach people across a range of marketing objectives, such as generating leads or driving awareness. Marketers purchase ads that can appear in multiple places, including on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and third-party applications and websites. RL generates revenue from sales of consumer hardware products, software, and content.
The company invests in its business based on the company’s priorities. In 2025, the company intends to focus on several key investment areas: generative AI, the company’s discovery engine, the metaverse and wearables, Threads, monetization of the company’s products and services, platform integrity and community support, and infrastructure capacity.
The majority of the company’s investments are directed toward developing the company’s family of apps. In 2024, 79% of the company’s total costs and expenses were recognized in FoA and 21% were recognized in RL. The company’s FoA investments were $75.25 billion in 2024 and include expenses relating to headcount, data centers and technical infrastructure as part of the company’s efforts to develop the company’s apps and its advertising services. The company is also making significant investments in the company’s metaverse and wearables efforts. This includes developing virtual, mixed, and augmented reality devices, software for social platforms, neural interfaces, and other foundational technologies.
Substantially all of the company’s revenue is generated from marketers advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
Family of Apps Products
Facebook. Facebook helps give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. It's a place for people to share life's moments and discuss what's happening, nurture and build relationships, discover and connect to people with shared interests, and create economic opportunity. They can do this through Feed, Reels, Stories, Groups, Marketplace, and more.
Instagram. Instagram brings people closer to the people and things they love. Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, Live, and messaging are places where people and creators can connect and express themselves through photos, video, and private messaging, and discover and shop from their favorite businesses.
Messenger. Messenger is a simple yet powerful messaging application for people to connect with friends, family, communities, and businesses across platforms and devices through text, audio, and video calls.
Threads. Threads is an application for text-based updates and public conversations, where communities come together to discuss topics of interest. People can connect directly with their favorite creators and others who love the same things or build a loyal following of their own to share their ideas, opinions, and creativity with the world.
WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a simple, reliable, and secure messaging application that is used by people and businesses around the world to communicate and transact in a private way. Within WhatsApp the company launched WhatsApp Channels, a one-to-many broadcast service designed to help people follow information from people and organizations that are important to them.
Reality Labs Products
Many of the company’s Reality Labs investments are directed toward long-term, cutting edge research and development for products that are not on the market today and may only be fully realized in the next decade. This includes exploring new technologies such as neural interfaces using electromyography, which lets people control their devices using neuromuscular signals, as well as innovations in AI and hardware to help build next-generation interfaces. In the near term, the company is continuing to develop early metaverse and wearables products and experiences that help people feel connected, anytime, anywhere.
The company’s metaverse efforts include its VR, MR, and social platform initiatives. The company’s product offerings in VR include its Meta Quest devices, as well as software and content available through the Meta Horizon Store, which enable a range of social experiences that allow people to defy physical distance while engaging in gaming, fitness, entertainment, and more. To drive greater adoption and acceptance of VR the company has introduced MR capabilities, which allow users to experience the immersion and presence of VR while still being grounded in the physical world, through the company’s Meta Quest devices.
The company’s wearables efforts include its AR initiatives. The company has continued to advance its roadmap to include additional AI-enabled offerings such as the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, which feature Meta AI, the company’s advanced conversational assistant, as well as other features such as hands-free interaction. As the company continues its long-term efforts to bring AR glasses to market, in 2024 the company also unveiled its Orion prototype, a pair of true AR glasses that overlay content on top of the physical world. It does this with an industry-leading field of view and in glasses form factor for comfortable wear.
In general, while all of these investments are part of the company’s long-term initiative to help build the next computing platform, the company’s metaverse efforts also include notable shorter-term projects developing specific products and services to go to market, whereas the company’s wearables efforts are primarily directed toward longer-term research and development projects. For example, in 2025, the company expects to spend approximately 50% of its Reality Labs operating expenses on the company’s wearables initiatives, and the remaining 50% on the company’s metaverse initiatives. The company applies significant judgment in estimating this expense breakdown as there are certain shared costs across product lines, and the company’s expectations are subject to change, including as the next computing platform and the company’s business strategies evolve. In particular, the company regularly evaluates its product roadmaps and make significant changes as its understanding of the technological challenges and market landscape and the company’s product ideas and designs evolve.
Sales and Operations
The majority of the company’s marketers use its self-service ad platform to launch and manage their advertising campaigns. The company also has a global sales force that is focused on attracting and retaining advertisers and providing support to them throughout the stages of the marketing cycle from pre-purchase decision-making to real-time optimizations to post-campaign analytics. The company works directly with these advertisers, as well as through advertising agencies and resellers. The company operates offices in more than 90 cities around the globe, the majority of which have a sales presence. The company also invests in and relies on self-service tools to provide direct customer support to the company’s users and partners.
For the company’s RL products, the company’s sales and operations efforts utilize third-party sales channels such as retailers, resellers, and the company’s direct-to-consumer channel, Meta.com. These efforts are focused on driving consumer and enterprise sales and adoption of the company’s Meta Quest portfolio of products and Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.
Marketing
Historically, the company’s communities have generally grown organically with people inviting their friends to connect with them, supported by internal efforts to stimulate awareness and interest. In addition, the company has invested and will continue to invest in marketing the company’s products and services to grow the company’s brand and help build community around the world.
Government Regulation
The company has implemented steps to comply with the above corrective orders following engagement with the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC).
The company has implemented a number of product changes and controls as a result of requirements under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA), also establishes certain transparency rules and creates certain data privacy rights for users, including limitations on the company’s use of certain sensitive personal information and more ability for users to control the purposes for which their data is shared with third parties.
The company is engaging with regulators on its consent model, including regarding compliance with requirements under the GDPR, Digital Markets Act (DMA), and EU consumer laws. For example, in March 2024, the European Commission opened formal proceedings regarding the compliance of the company’s ‘subscription for no ads’ model with requirements under the DMA, and it issued preliminary findings in July 2024, reflecting its preliminary view that the company’s model does not comply with such requirements, and indicated that it will conclude its investigation in March 2025. In addition, the European Data Protection Board has published an opinion on the operation of such models under GDPR and European consumer protection organizations have raised concerns regarding the company’s compliance with consumer protection laws.
Further, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which started to apply to the company’s business as of August 2023, imposes certain restrictions and requirements for the company’s products and services, subjects the company to increased compliance costs, and includes significant penalties for non-compliance.
The company is also subject to regulatory orders or consent decrees, including the modified consent order the company entered into with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which took effect in April 2020 and, among other things, required the company to significantly enhance its practices and processes for privacy compliance and oversight. The FTC also continues to monitor the company and the company’s compliance with the modified consent order and initiated an administrative proceeding against the company, which it is challenging at the agency and in federal court, that alleges deficient compliance and violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the COPPA Rule, and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and seeks changes to the company’s business.
History
The company was founded in 2004. It was incorporated in Delaware in 2004. The company was formerly known as Facebook, Inc. and changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. in 2021.