SAN FRANCISCO: Meta registered $34 billion in revenue in its third quarter, up 23 per cent from the same quarter last year.

Total costs and expenses were $20.40 billion, a decrease of 7 per cent (year-over-year) in the September quarter. Net income rose 164 per cent from a year earlier to $11.58 billion in the quarter.

However, the company is still burning cash with its Reality Labs division and Meta expects its operating losses there to increase “meaningfully” year-over-year. Meta’s AR-VR division has lost close to $25 billion since the start of last year.

"We had a good quarter for our community and business. I’m proud of the work our teams have done to advance AI and mixed reality with the launch of Quest 3, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and our AI studio,” Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The Meta stock initially went up but then fell more than 3 per cent. The company had 3.14 billion family daily active people (DAP) on average for September, an increase of 7 per cent year-over-year.

Facebook daily active users (DAUs) were 2.09 billion on average for September, an increase of 5 per cent.

“We expect fourth quarter 2023 total revenue to be in the range of $36.5-40 billion,” said the company. Meta’s Reality Labs division, which focuses on AR-VR, registered $3.74 billion in operating losses for the quarter.

Meta has 66,185 employees as of September 30, which is a 24 per cent year-over-year decrease.