Image of Mark Zuckerberg by Rokas Tenys via Shutterstock
Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta Platforms (META) has proved its critics wrong as its shares have recently climbed to new heights, largely thanks to its artificial intelligence-driven strategy. Central to this AI strategy is “Superintelligence,” a long-term vision Zuckerberg has for creating AI systems that exceed human-level intelligence across many domains.
And although Zuckerberg burned shareholders before with the metaverse, his last passion project, Superintelligence feels different. Unlike the metaverse, AI is a megatrend that is already revolutionizing daily life. And Meta, with its arsenal of popular social media platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, is betting big on AI to drive growth in the coming years. Meta is hiring big to staff this revolution, with Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang tasked with heading the new Superintelligence unit at Meta.
The market seems to be convinced this time, with Meta stock already up about 23% on a YTD basis.
Can Meta sustain this rally? I believe so, and here is why.
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Meta has been doubling down on its AI ambitions, both by making significant financial commitments and by attracting top talent from rival firms. To that end, the company has reportedly extended compensation offers ranging from $50 million to $100 million to lure engineers away from OpenAI and Anthropic. It also made a $14.3 billion investment for a 49% stake in Scale AI, a startup recognized for its industry-leading data labeling capabilities. This investment positions Meta advantageously when it comes to securing high-quality training datasets.
With such resources in place, Mark Zuckerberg is equipping Meta’s AI models to be not just competitive, but potentially market-leading.
Meta’s powerful cash generation is giving it the flexibility to aggressively invest in AI infrastructure. The company has earmarked $60 billion to $72 billion for capital spending in 2025, much of which will be spent on building and upgrading data centers. This rapid pace of investment demonstrates Meta’s conviction that long-term value can be realized by investing in innovation-driven scale.
Investors should also be watching V-JEPA 2, the second iteration of Meta’s Video Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture. V-JEPA 2 is a “a powerful video-based world model that helps machines anticipate how the physical world behaves.” According to Meta, the first monetized application of this technology is probably going to be in Instagram Reels, where AI-powered scene descriptions may improve the accuracy of ad targeting.
Meta is also preparing for the surge in power demand that comes with AI. In a recent move that underscores its long-term energy planning, the company entered into a power agreement with Constellation Energy (CEG). This deal offers a significant hedge against energy price volatility while providing greater certainty in cost forecasting and operational planning.
Meta’s spending spree on acquisitions and innovation has not prevented it from delivering strong financial results. The company has raised its revenue and earnings at impressive compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) of 29% and 37%, respectively, over the past 10 years.
Moreover, the company has been on a streak of reporting earnings beats for the past nine quarters, with the most recent quarter seeing Meta reporting a beat on both revenue and earnings. Q1 2025 saw the company report revenues of $42.3 billion, up 16% from the previous year.
Earnings witnessed an even sharper rise of 37% to $6.43, coming in much ahead of the consensus estimate of an EPS of $5.24. The rise in revenue and earnings were also accompanied by an improvement in operating margins to 41% from 38% in the year-ago period.
Coming to cash flow, net cash from operating activities was at $24.03 billion, higher than the prior year’s figure of $19.25 billion. The company reported total cash and equivalents of $30.1 billion.
Overall, Meta expects to report revenues to be in the range of $42.5 billion to 45.5 billion in Q2 2025. The midpoint of this range denotes a yearly rise of 12.6%, even though the company lowered its revenue outlook for the full year to be between $113 billion and $118 billion, down from $114 billion to $119 billion.
Overall, analysts remain bullish about Meta stock, giving it a consensus rating of “Strong Buy” with a mean target price of $724.98. This denotes upside potential of about 1% from current levels. However, the high target price of $935 indicates upside potential of about 30% from current levels.
Out of 54 analysts covering the stock, 45 have a “Strong Buy” rating, three have a “Moderate Buy” rating, five have a “Hold” rating, and one has a “Strong Sell” rating.
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On the date of publication, Pathikrit Bose did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com
