Meta Q3 Revenue Beats Forecasts at $64.6 Billion as Legal Charge Cuts Reported Profit

Meta Platforms reported its third quarter results after the United States market close on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. Revenue rose 26 percent from a year earlier to $64.60 billion, ahead of the $63.34 billion that analysts polled by FactSet had expected. Reported earnings fell to $3.83 per share, well under the $6.54 per share analysts expected, because the quarter absorbed a legal charge of about $9.9 billion. Meta said earnings would have been $7.40 per share without the charge.

An August settlement lands in the quarter

The charge comes from a multi-state settlement of teen social media addiction cases reached in August. The settlement totals $16.7 billion, and $9.89 billion of it was accounted for in the third quarter. Operating income came in at about $13 billion, below the roughly $20.9 billion analysts had forecast. The charge also pushed up Meta's full year expense outlook.

Advertising carries the quarter

Advertising revenue reached about $63.1 billion, ahead of forecasts near $61.9 billion. Revenue at the Family of Apps segment, which covers Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was about $64.2 billion. Family of Apps operating income was about $17.1 billion, below estimates of about $23.3 billion, a gap that reflects the legal charge sitting in the segment's costs. Reality Labs, the unit that builds virtual and augmented reality products, recorded revenue of about $440 million and an operating loss of about $4.1 billion. The loss was narrower than the roughly $5.1 billion loss analysts had expected, while the revenue missed forecasts near $518 million.

Guidance holds, spending rises

Meta expects fourth quarter revenue of $73 billion to $76 billion, close to the analyst consensus of about $73.6 billion. The company raised its full year total expense outlook to $175 billion to $179 billion, up about $10 billion at both ends of the range, and said the increase covers the legal charge. It narrowed its capital expenditure range for the year to $135 billion to $145 billion. Meta also announced a new non-voting Class C common stock, effective in January. For 2027, the company said it expects to keep investing aggressively in its core business and in its artificial intelligence work.

Muse and the AI push

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the quarter included "launching Muse and Muse Wonder, our first frontier model," and that "the core business is strong." He said the company's investments are paying off. Meta shares gained 0.5 percent in regular trading on Wednesday and rose in after hours trading following the results. The report landed on the same evening as results from Tesla, in one of the busiest earnings nights of the quarter.