Meta is slated to report third-quarter earnings on Wednesday after the shut of normal buying and selling.

This is what analysts polled by LSEG expect:

• Earnings per share: $5.25
• Income: $40.29 billion

Meta shares are up nearly 70% this yr and buying and selling close to a document, boosted by a string of robust earnings reviews. The corporate’s beneficial properties on Wall Avenue have benefited Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who earlier in October surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos because the world’s second-richest particular person for the primary time, in keeping with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Zuckerberg has been pointing to Meta’s large investments into artificial intelligence, which incorporates spending billions of dollars on Nvidia’s common graphics processing items, as serving to enhance the corporate’s core on-line advert enterprise within the aftermath of Apple’s 2021 iOS privacy update.

With Meta in July reporting its fourth straight quarter of gross sales development above 20%, traders stay optimistic concerning the firm’s general monetary well being. Bernstein analysts said in a analysis word final week that Meta changed Alphabet because the agency’s “set-it-and-forget-it blue chip holding” due to the corporate’s “wholesome core enterprise” and its low-risk AI technique.

Meta’s outcomes come a day after digital advert firms Alphabet, Reddit and Snap all reported strong quarterly earnings. Microsoft reviews after the bell on Wednesday, and the large week for tech earnings wraps up on Thursday, when Apple and Amazon report quarterly financials.

One potential concern for Meta might be slowing income development.

If Meta hits analysts’ expectations for third-quarter income, that will characterize 18% year-over-year development, down from 23% a yr in the past. At the moment, Meta was closely benefiting from the massive digital ad spending from China-linked retailers like Temu and Shein, and it is unclear how lengthy these firms will proceed their digital advertising blitzes.

In February, Meta reported fourth-quarter income that was up 25% year-over-year, and in April, the corporate’s first-quarter income was up 27% from a yr earlier. Besting these marks might be a “robust bar” for the corporate, stated Angelo Zino, vp and know-how fairness analysis analyst at CFRA. Buyers might be wanting to see steerage.

“You form of take a look at that and also you marvel, is that going to be sustained?” Zino stated.

In the meantime, Meta continues investing heavily in its Actuality Labs {hardware} division. The corporate’s robust internet advertising enterprise and former rounds of main layoffs in 2022 and 2023 have helped quell the issues of anxious traders, however Actuality Labs’ bills of $4.8 billion within the second quarter dwarfed the $353 million it generated in gross sales.  

Zuckerberg’s showcase of the corporate’s Orion AR prototype AR glasses in September was considered as a hit by his staff, and Meta plans to court docket software program builders in 2025 as it really works towards a shopper model of the headset, CNBC reported earlier this month.

The joy and buzz round Meta’s prototype Orion AR glasses and the way they match into the corporate’s long-term technique appears to have eclipsed that of Apple and its competing Vision Pro VR headset, which debuted early this yr at a beginning value of $3,500, stated Barton Crockett, managing director and senior analysis analyst at Rosenblatt Securities.

“The Orion exhibits a imaginative and prescient that is fascinating, and so they’ve executed quite a bit higher than Apple, which is one thing that no person would have believed was potential,” Crockett stated.

Meta additionally hopes to construct off the thrill of its Ray-Ban Meta good glasses, which it develops in partnership with EssilorLuxottica. Crockett famous that due to the constructive response to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, these units “might be a preferred present this Christmas.”

WATCH: Meta’s revenue has room to run despite all their AI spending.