One-glance verdict
$449.61 our estimate vs market $728.08
Wall Street consensus: $794.96 (76.8% higher than our fair-value estimate)
62% above our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
META · NMS · Communication Services · Internet Content & Information
Current price
$728.08
52-week range
$520.26 - $779.82
Market cap
$1.85T
One-glance verdict
Wall Street consensus: $794.96 (76.8% higher than our fair-value estimate)
62% above our estimate
Balance sheet
Net debt $22.06B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
What this company does
Meta Platforms is the company behind familiar apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It makes the vast majority of its money from selling advertising to businesses that want to reach the billions of people using these free services. The company is also spending heavily to develop future technologies like virtual reality headsets, a big bet on how we might interact online in the future.
Originally named Facebook, the company started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 as a social networking site for college students. It quickly grew into a global social media giant, connecting billions of people. Over the years, it made significant acquisitions, including the photo-sharing app Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014, which solidified its market position. In 2021, the parent company rebranded to Meta Platforms to signal its strategic shift and focus on building the metaverse, a future version of the internet with immersive virtual experiences.
Meta is a technology company that builds products to help people connect with friends, family, and communities. You probably know it best for its social media apps like Facebook and Instagram, and messaging services like WhatsApp and Messenger. In addition to these free apps, which make money primarily through advertising, the company is also investing heavily in future technologies. This includes developing virtual and augmented reality hardware, like the Meta Quest headsets, and software to create immersive digital worlds.
This is Meta's core business and includes its most famous products: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. These platforms are free for users to connect, share content, and communicate. This segment generates the vast majority of the company's revenue (the money it brings in) by selling advertising to businesses of all sizes that want to reach this large global audience. It is the financial engine that powers the entire company.
This is Meta's forward-looking division, focused on building the next generation of computing. It is responsible for creating virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, such as the Meta Quest headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The goal is to develop the 'metaverse,' an immersive digital world where people can interact with each other in 3D. This part of the business is a small but strategically important slice of the company, currently operating at a significant loss (spending more than it earns) as it invests heavily in research and development.
Meta's leadership is heavily focused on two main priorities: artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse. The company is integrating AI across its Family of Apps to improve content recommendations and ad targeting, which helps keep users engaged and advertisers happy. Simultaneously, it is pouring billions of dollars into its Reality Labs division to build the hardware and software for the metaverse, which it sees as the next major computing platform. This dual strategy uses the immense profits from its established social media business to fund its ambitious, long-term vision for the future of digital connection.
Price history
Earnings history
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
Is it cheap or expensive?
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $794.96 (76.8% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $449.61 a share — about 38.2% away from today's price of $728.08, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Net debt $22.1B. Interest coverage 71.5x.
Meta Platforms, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 71.5 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Total debt $112.32B Interest coverage 71.48x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $120.79B Interest coverage 175.32x +145% vs META Carries about 2.5x more debt cushion than META.
Total debt $251.64B Interest coverage 35.17x -51% vs META Carries about 2.0x less debt cushion than META.
Total debt $128.81B Interest coverage 50.88x -29% vs META Carries about 1.4x less debt cushion than META.
Total debt $84.34B Interest coverage 33.83x -53% vs META Carries about 2.1x less debt cushion than META.
Total debt $16.65B Interest coverage 17.16x -76% vs META Carries about 4.2x less debt cushion than META.
What you should know
The numbers
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Valuation
Profitability
Health
Growth
Cash flow
Dividend
Metric explainer
Debt comparison
What you should know