Meta shares plummet 20% after posting rare profit decline

Meta Platforms (FB), the company formerly known as Facebook, posted net income of nearly $10.3 billion in the final three months of last year, a decline of 8% from the same period in the prior year and below what Wall Street analysts had predicted.

The company’s stock plunged as much as 22% in after-hours trading Wednesday following the earnings report.

The profit decline comes as Meta invests heavily in the virtual and augmented reality technologies it sees as the future of its business, and as it combats a change to Apple’s iOS that has made advertising targeting more difficult and weighed on Meta’s core ad sales business.

Meta posted a more than $10 billion loss last year from operations in its AR and VR unit, Reality Labs. This marks the first time the company has disclosed financials for the unit.

The company also shared a rough forecast for the upcoming quarter, saying it expects revenue to grow only between 3% and 11% due to “headwinds to both impression and price growth” in its core advertising business.

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