Meta astounds Street with cheaper prices, a significant buyback, and brisk sales

As CEO Mark Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 the "Year of Efficiency," Meta Platforms Inc.'s shares soared on Wednesday as a result of tighter cost controls this year and a new $40 billion share repurchase.

The parent company of Instagram and Facebook, which has struggled amid a general post-pandemic dip in digital advertising, is concentrating on enhancing its artificial intelligence-powered content recommendations and ad targeting systems to keep people clicking. In the meantime, it plans to reduce expenses in 2023 by $5 billion, bringing them down significantly from the $94 billion to $100 billion it had previously predicted. It also anticipates first-quarter revenues that may surpass Wall Street expectations.

After-hours trading saw a nearly 19% increase in Meta shares. If Thursday's gains continue, the market value of the stock will increase by more than $75.5 billion, giving it its greatest intraday jump in ten years. The stock currently has a market capitalization of $401 billion.

As part of the company's natural evolution, Zuckerberg characterized the emphasis on efficiency as a "phase change" for a business that originally operated under the maxim "move fast and break things."