A lot of the commentary round Meta Platforms‘ (META -6.09%) disastrous third-quarter earnings report focuses on the prolific spending associated to the metaverse. The Actuality Labs phase, chargeable for the corporate’s digital actuality and metaverse initiatives, posted an working lack of $3.67 billion and generated simply $285 million of income.
Meta expects working bills tied to Actuality Labs to surge additional in 2023. This outlook is a giant motive why shares of Meta had tanked greater than 20% by Thursday afternoon. The corporate’s aggressive plans to put money into its knowledge facilities acquired a bit much less consideration.
Betting large on AI
Meta wants loads of compute capability to deal with the billions of customers who scroll by way of Fb and Instagram every month. However your commonplace knowledge middle server is not going to have the ability to deal with synthetic intelligence (AI) workloads effectively. Beefy graphics playing cards or specialised chips tailored for AI are required to run AI workloads at scale.
Meta has determined that it must improve its knowledge middle footprint to help next-gen AI {hardware}. The corporate needs to make larger use of AI to enhance the way it serves content material and advertisements to its customers. “We count on these investments to supply us a know-how benefit and unlock significant enhancements throughout lots of our key initiatives, together with Feed, Reels and Advertisements,” stated CFO Dave Wehner through the third-quarter earnings name.
On prime of shopping for costly servers and networking gear for its present knowledge facilities, Meta can be increasing its knowledge middle footprint. The corporate believes it will give it larger flexibility, which is anticipated to generate price financial savings over time.
Meta plans to spend between $32 billion and $33 billion on capital expenditures this 12 months, ramping as much as a variety of $34 billion to $39 billion in 2023. Past subsequent 12 months, the corporate’s spending can be guided by the return on these investments. For reference, the corporate spent simply $19.2 billion on capex in 2021.
This funding cycle is totally different
This is not Meta’s first main funding cycle. The final one, in 2018-2019, noticed capex as a share of income surge identical to it is doing now.
Knowledge supply: Meta and Yahoo! Finance. Chart by writer. Figures for 2022 and 2023 are primarily based on the common of Meta’s capex steerage and the common analyst estimate for income.
The distinction this time is that Meta has stopped rising. The core promoting enterprise is going through varied headwinds, together with privateness adjustments Apple made on iOS units, a slowdown in advertiser demand, and the surging recognition of newer apps like TikTok.
Investing in AI ought to assist Meta serve extra related content material and advertisements, which might make the corporate’s apps extra interesting for advertisers. However all of the AI on this planet is not going to make Fb widespread with youthful customers once more.
Meta’s complete income slumped 4% 12 months over 12 months within the third quarter. Advert impressions rose 17%, however the common worth per advert tumbled 18%. Investing in AI to enhance how a lot Meta can generate per advert impression is sensible, however the scale of those investments ought to be at the very least somewhat worrying for traders. Meta is not investing to help its development just like the final time round, it is investing to restart it. That is a a lot riskier proposition.
To its credit score, Meta is doing the other of what many firms would do on this state of affairs. As a substitute of slashing prices to prop up the underside line, Meta is plowing money again into its enterprise. The issue is that these investments do not deal with the core points going through Meta’s promoting enterprise. What good are extra related advertisements and content material if persons are more and more turning to competing platforms like TikTok?
Regardless of Meta inventory tumbling greater than 70% from its peak and reaching a price-to-sales ratio beneath 2.5, it is a dangerous wager. Valuation does not matter when the longer term is clouded with uncertainty. To me, Meta looks as if the more than likely mega-cap tech firm to not exist in a significant method 20 years down the street. I am unable to put odds on that, so I merely will not hassle with the inventory in any respect, regardless of how low cost it appears.
Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market improvement and spokeswoman for Fb and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Idiot’s board of administrators. Timothy Inexperienced has no place in any of the shares talked about. The Motley Idiot has positions in and recommends Apple and Meta Platforms, Inc. The Motley Idiot recommends the next choices: lengthy March 2023 $120 calls on Apple and quick March 2023 $130 calls on Apple. The Motley Idiot has a disclosure coverage.