US President Donald Trump One big beautiful bill law could see that Meta, one of the world's most valuable companies, has an effective tax rate of 14%, compared to a reported effective tax rate of 87%. That would mean its reported net income of $2.7 billion would actually be $19 billion.
The company, which had $51 billion in third-quarter revenue, grew its business 26%. Total spending increased to $31 billion, up 32% from last year.
Capital costsincluding principal finance lease payments, amounted to $19.4 billion, driven by investments in servers, data centers and network infrastructure.
Discussing the spending, CFO Susan Lee said: “Our primary focus is to direct capital to support the company's highest priorities, including growth leading artificial intelligence products, models and business solutions.
“As we make significant investments in infrastructure to support this work, we are focused on maintaining maximum long-term flexibility to ensure we can meet our future capacity needs while also being able to respond to how the market evolves in the years ahead. We are doing this in several ways, including building data center sites so we can quickly add capacity in the future as needed, as well as establishing strategic partnerships that give us options for future computing needs.”
Lee said she expects total spending to grow at a significantly faster percentage rate in 2026 than in 2025, with growth driven primarily by infrastructure costs, including additional cloud costs and depreciation.
“Employee benefit costs will be the second largest driver of growth as we recognize a full benefit year for employees hired through 2025, particularly for AI professionals, and add technical talent in priority areas,” she added.
In addition to rising investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers, Lee reported a decline in revenue in the Meta Reality Labs business. She attributed the decline to demand for the company's new headsets.
“The expected reduction in Reality Labs revenue is due to our cancellation of the Quest 3S introduction in the fourth quarter of last year and because retail partners purchased Quest headsets in the third quarter of this year in preparation for the holiday season, which were recorded as revenue in the third quarter.”
Discussing the popularity of Meta Ray-Bans and Oakley AI glasses, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, said: “We continue to lead the AI glasses industry. We will have to invest in increasing production and selling more of these glasses. This is an area where we are clearly leading and have a huge opportunity ahead. Taking a step back, if we provide even a fraction of the capabilities for our existing applications and the new capabilities that are possible, then I think the next few years will be the most exciting period.” in our history.”
Commenting on Meta's results, Forrester Vice President and Director of Research Mike Proulx said: “Unfortunately, Meta's strong revenue and user growth in the third quarter were overshadowed by significant cost increases across the board. True to form, Meta's Reality Labs continued its losing streak with no sign of slowing down.”
“It's no surprise that Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses causing a stir,” he continued. “This new computing platform is generating curiosity among early adopters. When it comes to hardware devices, Meta has found its niche with AI-powered glasses, while other companies remain fast followers and are unlikely to catch up in the near future.”
